Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

Early Monastic Buddhism v2.c33.s1: Their origin and literature

Early Monastic Buddhism v2.c33.s1

Language
English

Their origin and literature

v2.c33.s1.1

In the account of the Second Council, we have already shown how and when the Mahāsanghikas appeared in the field; and what disciplinary rules and dogmas were upheld by them. In the history of Buddhism, they were the earliest seceders to come into the field.

v2.c33.s1.2

In the *Dīpavaṃsa*,¹ it is stated that they did not stop at introducing only the ten new Vinaya rules but went further and propounded new doctrines contrary to the established ones. At the Mahāsaṅgīti held by them, in reciting the Sūtras and the Vinaya, they made alterations in the texts, their arrangement and interpretations. They replaced portions of the text by others according to their liking, and even rejected certain parts of the canon though they had been accepted in Mahākassapa’s council. They did not include in the Piṭaka collection,² *Parivāra*, *Abhidhammappakaraṇa*, *Paṭisambhidā*, *Niddesa*, and the *Jātakas*. The importance and accuracy of the decision by which the Mahāsanghikas discriminated between the original portions and the later interpolations are found in the full support that the decision obtains from modern researches bearing out their discrimination in *toto*. The *Parivāra* (*pāṭha*), meant as a manual for the bhikkhus, is no doubt a composition of a date much later than that of the Canon.³ The Abhidhamma literature also developed after the Council of Vesālī and obtained its final shape in Aśoka’s Council.⁴ Lastly the three works, the *Paṭisambhidā*, the *Niddesa* and the *Jātakas* too have been added to the Canon without much discrimination and evidently long after its close. In view of the contents, it would have been proper if the *Paṭisambhidā* had been included in the *Abhidhamma* collection, and the *Niddesa*, an old commentary on the *Sutta Nipāta*, along with the *Jātakas* which is a commentary on the canonical Jātaka book, had been altogether excluded from the Piṭaka collection.

v2.c33.s1.3

¹ *Dīpavaṃsa*, ch. iv.

v2.c33.s1.4

² *Dīpavaṃsa*, V, 32-38.

v2.c33.s1.5

³ Rhys Davids, *Hibbert Lectures*, p. 42; Oldenberg’s *Intro. to the Vinaya Piṭaka*, I. p. xxxiv.

v2.c33.s1.6

⁴ Oldenberg, op. cit., p. xxxiv.

v2.c33.s1.7

From all these testimonies mentioned above, it is apparent that like the Theravādins and the Sarvāstivādins, the Mahāsaṅghikas also had a complete canon of their own in its three divisions. References to the canon of the Mahāsaṅghikas are found in the inscriptions discovered at Amarāvatī and Nāgārjunikoṇḍa. On the pillar of an outer railing of the Amarāvatī stūpa there are two inscriptions, one of which speaks of certain nuns as *Vinayadhara*¹ and another of the monks of Mahāvanaseliya as *Mahāvinayadhara*.² These distinctly imply the existence of a Vinayapiṭaka in that region about the beginning of the Christian era.

v2.c33.s1.8

¹ Burgess, *Buddhist Stūpas of Amarāvatī and Jaggayyapeta* (Arch. Sur. of S. India), p. 37.

v2.c33.s1.9

² *Ibid.*, p. 102.

v2.c33.s1.10

There are similar references to the Sūtra-piṭaka also, but in more details. In an inscription³ on one of the slabs found near the Central stūpa of Amarāvatī there is a reference to a monk of Mahāvanasālā as *Saṃyuta-bhāṇaka* (not *Saṃyutabhātuka*, as read by Burgess). In the Nāgārjunikoṇḍa, appear the following inscriptions in the Āyaka pillars C₁ and C₂: *Dīgha-Majhima-paṃcamātuka-osaka-vācakānaṃ*, *Dīgha-Majhima-nikāya-dharena*, *Dīgha-Majhima-paṃda-mātuka-desaka vācakānaṃ* and *Dīgha-Ma-nigoya-dharena*. These leave no room for doubt about the existence of a Sutta-piṭaka in at least three Nikāyas: Dīgha, Majjhima and Saṃyukta.

v2.c33.s1.11

³ *Ibid.*, p. 91 (Plate xlviii, 35), see also p. 105.

v2.c33.s1.12

There also occurs the expression *Pañca-mātuka* which is a Prākrit form of *Pañca-mātṛkā* or (Pāli) *Pañca-mātukā*. In Pāli, *mātikā* is the usual term for the Abhidhamma-piṭaka. Among the Vinaya texts in Chinese, catalogued by Nanjio, there are four works with *mātṛkā* as a part of their titles, though none of these belong to the Mahāsanghikas.¹ Prof. Przyluski writes² the Mahāsanghikas had a particular fancy for the number “five”, specially in connection with the Vinaya rules. *Mātṛkā* was used by the ancient writers to denote the Vinaya-piṭaka as much as the Abhidharma-piṭaka, hence the word ‘Paṃca-mātuka’ of the inscriptions may well mean the Vinaya-piṭaka of the Mahāsanghikas whose text also had five divisions like the other schools.³

v2.c33.s1.13

¹ See *IHQ.*, vol. VII, p. 644-5.

v2.c33.s1.14

² Przyluski, *Le Concile de Rājagṛha*, p. 212.

v2.c33.s1.15

³ Przyluski, *op. cit.*, pp. 353, 357, 359.

v2.c33.s1.16

Fa-hien (414 A.D.) took away, from Pāṭaliputra to China, a complete transcript of the Mahāsanghika Vinaya and translated it into Chinese two years later.⁴ According to Yuan Chwang the Vinaya of the Mahāsanghikas was the same as the one reiterated in the First Council. In Nanjio’s *Catalogue* are mentioned two Vinaya texts of this school, viz., Mahāsanghika Vinaya and Mahāsangha-bhikṣuṇī Vinaya (No. 543). Fortunately, there is the original *Mahāvastu*,⁵ which is the first volume of the Vinaya Piṭaka of the Lokottaravādins, a branch of the Mahāsanghikas. It corresponds to that part of the Pāli Vinaya Piṭaka, which gives an account of Buddha’s life and his formation of the first Saṅgha. By Buddha’s life, the compiler meant not merely his present life but the events of his past lives as well, by recounting which he showed that a particular event in this life was only a repetition or result of the past. The account is divided into three sections like the *Nidāna-kathā* of the *Jātakas*, the first dealing with his existences during the time of Dīpaṅkara and other Buddhas, the secnod with his life in Tuṣita heaven, and the third with his present life, agreeing mostly with the contents of the Pāli Mahāvagga. Apart from a few rules relating to ordination, it has nothing to do with the disciplinary matters. It contains a few Prakrit versions of the sūtras of the Nikāyas, Sutta-nipāta, Dhammapada and a few other texts. It is more a collection of Jātakas than a text on Vinaya. Winternitz thinks that its date of composition should be placed between the 2nd century B.C. and the 4th century A.D.¹

v2.c33.s1.17

⁴ Takakusu, *Records of the Buddhist Religion by I-tsing*, p. xx.

v2.c33.s1.18

⁵ Senart’s ed. p. 2.

v2.c33.s1.19

¹ See Winternitz, History of Buddhist Literature, II, p. 239; B. C. Law, A Study of the Mahāvastu, 1930.

v2.c33.s1.20

Yuan Chwang states that the Mahāsanghikas accepted the canon as rehearsed in Kassapa’s Council but they included certain discourses which had been rejected in the first recitation as non-canonical. He further states that the canon of the Mahāsanghikas was divided into four parts: Sūtra, Vinaya, Abhidharma and Dhāraṇī.

Linked texts (11)