Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c6.s1.26

c6.s1.26

We come to firmer ground when we find in the inscriptions at Sāñchi² the terms *dhammakathika*, ‘preacher of the Law’, *sutātikini*, ‘one who knows a Suttanta’, *peṭaki*, ‘one who knows a Piṭaka’, and, most important of all, *pacanekāyika*, ‘one who knows the five Nikāyas’. The term *peṭaki* is dubious in sense; it might mean ‘one who knows the Piṭakas’, whether two or more, but it is more probable that only one Piṭaka is meant, and that in this period that name, unknown to the Canon, was applied to the five Nikāyas, as indeed it is certainly applied in the work *Peṭakopadesa*, while Suttanta was specifically applicable to the dialogues. The date of these records, therefore, becomes of real importance; it may conceivably be the second century B. C., but it is quite possible that it should be placed a century later.³ We have, therefore, moderately secure ground for thinking that in the two centuries after Asoka the *Sutta Piṭaka* of the Pali Canon was coming into being, and in the same period we may place the redaction of the *Vinaya Piṭaka*, in the composite form in which we have it, thus avoiding the absurdity of supposing that Asoka knew these great collections and yet managed to avoid ever mentioning them. It is needless to say that there is nothing in Indian history to make us doubt this result; if Asoka’s empire was brief in duration, Buddhism went on developing and flourishing, receiving, it is clear, patronage from the Greek and Çaka invaders until it received once more imperial patronage from the Kuṣāṇa Kaniṣka, probably at the close of the first century A. D. The date suggested is rather strengthened by the fact that under Kaniṣka there is evidence of literary activity in dealing with the scriptures of the Sarvāstivādin school, which may, therefore, have been coming into form much in the same period as the texts which we have in the Pali Canon.⁴