Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c6.s1.13

c6.s1.13

The evidence for an early date of the Sutta Piṭaka is still less satisfactory. Reliance is specially placed by supporters of an early date on the Bhābrū edict of Asoka, in which he recommends seven passages or topics of the law for the study of his co-religionists. Ingenuity has identified all seven with certain passages of the Sutta Piṭaka, but there is a lamentable lack of unity in these identifications, as was only to be expected when terms so vague as all but one of the names are concerned.¹ Even in that case, the instruction of Rāhula on falsehood, it is absurd to claim that Asoka knew the text as we have it in the Majjhima Nikāya. All that we do know from this passage of Asoka’s records, as from their general tone and expression, is that Buddhist texts were already in existence, probably of the type preserved in the Sutta Piṭaka, and proof of such a fact is hardly necessary. Yet these conflicting identifications are still apparently taken as serious evidence that the Sutta Piṭaka had come into existence, such as we have it, before Asoka’s date.