Theory of Government in Ancient India (Post-Vedic) c11.7

c11.7

The dates of Buddhist works are almost as doubtful as those of Brahmanical literature. The word of the Buddha is supposed to be contained in the Tripitaka or Three Baskets, (1) Sutta comprising the five Nikayas or collections, (2) Vinaya giving rules of monastic life for monks and nuns in five sections—the Patimokkha, Mahavagga, Chullavagga, Suttavibhanga and Parivara, and (3) Abhidhama, comparatively inferior, in which metaphysics is discussed in seven works. The whole canon exists in two versions; (1) in, Pali the hieratic language of the Buddhists of Ceylon, Siam and Burma, and (2) in Sanskrit or mixed Sanskrit, the sacred language of Buddhism in Tibet, China and Japan. Rhys Davids, who relied chiefly on the Pali canon, worked on the hypothesis that the four Nikayas—the Digha or Long, Majjhima or Middle, Samyutta or Miscellaneous and Anguttara or Numerical, representing the sayings of the Buddha, were put together, "out of older material at a period about half-way between the death of the Buddha and the accession of Aśoka,” that is, in the fourth century B.C. Other sayings, ascribed mostly to the Buddha’s disciples, had been put into a supplementary fifth Nikāya, the Khuddaka or Minor Collection to which additions were made as late as the reign of Aśoka. But latterly there has set in a reaction against the acceptance of Buddhist traditional chronology. The dates of the Buddhist Councils, including the third one believed to have been held under the reign of Aśoka about 247 B.C., have been called in question. The Ceylonese tradition is, from the chronological point of view, now almost entirely set aside. It is argued that the whole Buddhist canon is posterior to Aśoka and could not have taken shape before the second or first century before Christ. Sylvain Levi shows that the Pâli idiom itself, which is the language of the southern canon, did not arise till sometime after Aśoka. Buddha and Mahâvira, the founder of Jainism, preached in some form of Prâkṛit, Mâgadhi or Ardha-Mâgadhi. Nor does Aśoka use Pâli in his Edicts. For purposes of discussion, therefore, one must start only with the assumption that the Nikâyas existed about the first century B.C. The Pâli canon is earlier than the Sanskrit. It is impossible to assign definite dates to the various books. It can only be surmised that the Nikâya which is mentioned last is probably later than the others. It is clear that the Nikâyas do not represent the work of a single mind or age.¹