The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c10.2.2

c10.2.2

This extensive canon exists in two versions: (1) in Pâli, the hieratic language of the Buddhists of Ceylon, Siam and Burma, and (2) in Sanskrit or ‘mixed’ Sanskrit, the sacred idiom of Buddhism in Nepâl, Tibet, and, in a way, also China and Japan. The dates of these works, however, are as doubtful as those of the Brahmanical Sûtras or Epics. Rhys Davids, who relied chiefly on the Pâli canon and tradition, worked on the hypothesis that the four Nikâyas—the Dîgha or Long, the Majjhima or Middle, Saṃyutta or Miscellaneous and Aṅguttara 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, were put into a supplementary fifth Nikâya, the Khuddaka or minor collection, to which additions were made as late as the reign of Aśoka. On the whole, both Rhys Davids and Oldenberg referred the Vinaya and Sutta Piṭakas to about the fourth century B.C. But the scheme is no longer accepted. The dates of the Buddhist councils themselves, including that of the third one believed to have been held under the auspices of Aśoka about 247 B.C., have been called in question.¹ The chronology of the Ceylonese tradition is now almost entirely set aside.