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Manual of Indian Buddhism c3: Part I. Introduction

Manual of Indian Buddhism c3

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Contents

Part I. Introduction

1. The Sacred Books

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The sacred lore of the Buddhists is based on the canonical books, a complete collection of which is technically called Tripiṭaka (Tipiṭaka), i. e. the three Baskets: 1. Vinaya, Sūtra (Sutta), and Abhidharma (Abhidhamma). Of all the collections going by that name the Pāli Tipiṭaka, representing the version acknowledged by the orthodox Theras or Vibhajyavādins of Ceylon, is the only one which forms a well arranged whole and is sufficiently known to admit of a critical disquisition into the relative age of its component parts, at least to a certain extent.

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The Vinaya, as its very name implies, treats chiefly of Discipline and all questions connected with it¹. About the development of the Vinaya we find most valuable hints in Prof. OLDENBERG'S Introduction to the Mahāvagga². His conclusions are summarized in the following list of successive events in the ancient literary history of Buddhism: 1. The genesis of the Pātimokkha. The earliest beginnings of the Dhamma literature. 2. The formation of the commentary on the Pātimokkha, which is included in the Vibhaṅga. 3. The Vibhaṅga is compiled; the Mahāvagga and the Cullavagga are composed; origin of the main substance of the Suttanta literature. 4. Council at Vesālī (± 383 B. C.). 5. Origin of the legend of the Council at Rājagaha; composition of the closing chapter of the Vinaya. 6. Schisms in the Buddhist community; origin of the Abhidhamma. 7. Council at Pāṭaliputta; the Kathāvatthu.

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¹ The P. Vinaya books have been completely edited by Prof. H. OLDENBERG (1879-83) under the titles of Mahāvagga, Cullavagga, Sutta-vibhaṅga, and Parivāra.

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² See there p. XV ff.; cp. Introd. to SBE. XIII by Prof. RHYS DAVIDS and OLDENBERG; and Introd. to Dhammapada, SBE. X, p. XXIX ff. by Prof. MAX MÜLLER.

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All these propositions are supported by sound reasoning and seem plausible enough, though a more thorough knowledge of the remains of the old Northern versions than we now possess may necessitate us to modify our views in some particulars³.

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³ Cp. the criticisms on OLDENBERG'S views by MINAYEF Recherches I, 61-67.

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The Sutta-Piṭaka, much more extensive and diversified than the Vinaya, may be said, in a loose way, to treat of various subjects more or less related to Doctrine. Its fivefold division into Nikāyas⁴ already occurs in Cullavagga XI, 1, 8, but the separate works are not mentioned; we only meet with the titles of the two first Suttas of the D. N. At the same passage we are told that the text of the 5 Nikāyas was rehearsed at the first council with the assistance of Ānanda, who bore witness as to the place where, the person concerning whom, and the cause for which each Sutta had been delivered. This account, apart from the legendary character of the first Council, cannot be true, for the opening formula of the Suttas is *evam me sutam*, which is impossible but in the mouth of one who derives his knowledge of the Master's teaching from oral tradition; no contemporary disciple can speak in such a manner¹. It may be remarked that the formula is absent from the Vinaya. In general we may assume that the disciplinary rules were elaborated much earlier than the doctrinal writings².

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⁴ To wit: 1. Dīgha-Nikāya; 2. Majjhima-Nikāya; 3. Saṃyutta-N.; 4. Aṅguttara-N. These 4 Nikāyas are also called Āgamas, which is the usual term with the N. Buddhists. 5. Khuḍḍa-N., comprizing Khuḍḍaka-pāṭha, Dhammapada, Udāna, Itivuttaka, Sutta-Nipāta,

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¹ The authenticity of the Council of R. is maintained by ROCKHILL, Life of the Buddha, p. VII. Cp. MINAYEF, Recherches, ch. II and III.

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² This is also the opinion of WASSILIEF, B., p. 17. About the earliest beginnings of the doctrinal literature cp. OLDENBERG, Introd. p. XXIV.

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About the age of the sundry books in the 5th Nikāya little can be affirmed with any degree of certainty. This much, however, is plain that their contents belong to different periods. To begin with the Jātakas, it will hardly be doubted that many of these popular tales are very old, some of them older than Buddhism itself. It is by no means improbable that from the time of the first expansion of the sect those tales, modified according to the exigencies of the creed, were used by the preaching monks for didactic purposes. It appears from the sculptures at Bharhut and Sānchi that the Jātakas were known as an integral part of Buddhist lore at the time of Aśoka³.

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³ See S. d'OLDENBURG JRAS of 1893, pp. 301-356; HULTZSCH DMG XL and Ind. Ant. XXI, 225 ff.; BÜHLER Votive inscriptions from the Sanchi Stūpas (Epigr. Ind. II, 87); The inscriptions on the Sanchi Stūpas (WZ VII, 291); On the origin of the Indian Brahma Alphabet, p. 17; A. ST. JOHN On the Sāma Jātaka (JRAS of 1894, p. 211); the N. version titled Syāmaka-Jāt. in Mahāvastu II, 210. On the discrepancies of the Bharhut Jātakas compared with the Pali version, see MINAYEF Recherches I, 140 ff.

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Whatever may be thought of the relative age of the different Suttas⁴ in the four Āgamas, and of the various compositions in the Khudda-Nikāya, the great bulk of the Sutta-Piṭaka in substance probably existed already in the 3d century B. C. The identification of the titles mentioned in the inscription of Babhra (Bairat) is attended with difficulties, but one Sutta at least, the "Lāghulovāda concerning falsehood" is evidently the same as the "Rāhulovāda on Musāvāda" in Majjhima-N. I. C. 414. It has been pointed out by BÜHLER⁵ that the occurrence of the title *pacanekāyika* (*pāñcanaikāyika*) presupposes the existence of a collection of 5 Nikāyas. It is, however, necessary to add that the remark does not apply to all sects; for aught we know, the division of the Sūtra-Piṭaka in 5 Nikāyas is peculiar to the Theravāda⁶. As to the subdivisions of the Nikāyas, there was some disagreement even among the Theravādins themselves⁷.

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⁴ E. g. the Assalāyana-Sutta (ed. PISCHEL 1880), in which the Indian caste system and the absence of castes with the Greeks are contrasted, cannot have been composed earlier than the 3d cent B. C., but other Suttas may be much older.

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⁵ Op. c. p. 17.

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⁶ Cp. A. BARTH Bull. Rel. de l'Inde, 1893-1894, p. 1. (separate copy).

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⁷ See CHILDERS s. v. nikāya.

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The Abhidhamma-P.⁸ is not mentioned at all in CV. This fact is sufficient to warrant the conclusion that it is posterior to the Council of Vesālī,

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⁸ Consists of seven Pakaraṇas: Dhammasaṅgaṇi, Vibhaṅga, Dhātukathā, Puggala-

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Vimānavatthu, Petavatthu, Theragāthā, Therigāthā, Jātaka, Niddesa or Mahā-Niddesa, Paṭisambhidā-magga, Apadāna, Buddhavamsa, Cariyā-piṭaka. See Saddh. S. p. 27; cp. CHILDERS Dict. p. 507.

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a conclusion moreover strengthened by its character. "The compilers of the Abhidhamma books seem to have taken up such subjects, only as are discussed at full length in the Nikāyas, dealing with them more or less in a purely scholastic and technical manner with some variation in regard to the order and arrangement of the numerous details connected with the Buddhist creed"¹. The edited texts, in fact, consist of a bare enumeration of classifications and definitions, which justifies the use of the term māṭṛkā as synonymous with abhidharma in Northern writings². "The period between the Council of Vesālī and that of Pāṭaliputta", to use the words of OLDENBERG³ "saw the origin of the schism, and was also the time of the development of the Abhidhamma literature".

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¹ Words of MORRIS in Intr. to his edition of the Puggala-paññatti, p. VIII.

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² See e. g. Divy. p. 18; 133; BURNOUF Intr. p. 48; 317. Cp. ROCKHILL, L. of B. p. 160.

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³ Op. c. p. XXXIV.

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The canonical books of the various sects among the Northern Buddhists — to use a more convenient than wholly accurate term — in so far as they have their counterparts in the Pāli canon and do not belong to the *new* canon of the Mahāyānists⁴, are but partially known. On comparing, first of all, the Chinese Vinaya of the Mahiśāsakas, a short analysis of which was communicated to OLDENBERG by BEAL, with the extracts of the Tibetan Vinaya of the Mahāsarvāstivādins⁴, the editor of the MV. draws the following conclusions⁵: "All of the different versions of the Vinaya are based upon *one* foundation; the arrangement of the material is the same in all; a large portion of the stories interwoven in the text correspond in all⁶. It has been pointed out above, that of the elements which constitute the Vibhaṅga the narrative portions were added last; the addition of these stories was made at an earlier period than that in which the differences of the various schools arose. Even the story of the first two Councils — which is clearly the part of the Pāli Vinaya last composed, is also met with at the exactly corresponding place in the Vinaya of the Mahiçāsakas, and of the Mahāsarvātivādinas."

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⁴ The term Tripiṭaka, when applied to a collection including Mahāyānist books, is properly a misnomer. In the Vyutpatti § 65 the Tripiṭaka and its subdivisions are duly separated from the Mahāyānist canonical works, the titles of which are given. The Tripiṭaka is not repudiated by the Mahāyānists; it is recognized by them, and stands to their own canon somewhat in the same relation as the Old Testament to the New.

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⁵ According to CSOMA KÖRÖSI in As. Rev. XX, especially p. 45 ff. Cp. JASB I, 1-6, and HUTH, Die Tibetische Version der Naihsargikaprāyaççittikadharmas (1891).

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⁶ Intr. p. XI.VII.

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Here it should be observed that both the Mahiśāsakas and Mahāsarvāstivādins are offshoots of the orthodox Sthaviravāda, and may be said to form subdivisions of the orthodox community. It is therefore very natural that their Vinaya bears so close a resemblance to that of the Theras. But from this it does not follow that *all versions* of the Vinaya, those of the different versions of the schismatic Mahāsaṅghikas included, show the same degree of affinity. Apart from the biassed testimony of their opponents that the Mahāsaṅghikas had altered the original redaction and made changes in the Vinaya and the 5 Nikāyas⁸, we can adduce a fact that one sect at least of the Mahāsaṅghika party made a peculiar application of the term Vinaya. The Mahāvastu, a book belonging to the school of the Lokottaravādins, a sub-

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⁸ Dīpav. V, 32 ff. Bodhivaṃsa, p. 96.

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paññatti (or *paṇṇatti), Kathāvatthu, Yamaka, and Paṭṭhāna. — A compendium of the whole is the Abhidhammattha-Saṅgaha, ed. by Prof. RHYS DAVIDS JPTS of 1884.

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⁷ Cp. JASB I, 1-6. The division in the Tibetan Dulva is: Vinayavastu, Prātimokṣa-sūtra, Vinayavibhaṅga, Vinayakṣudraka, and Vinayottaragrantha. Cp. Vyutp. § 65.

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division of the Mahāsānghikas, shows after the introduction the following title¹: "Āryamahāsānghikānām Lokottaravādinām Madhyadeśikānām pāṭhena Vinayapiṭakasya Mahāvastu ādi." As the badly arranged contents of this book are merely made up of chapters from the legendary life of the Bodhisattva, of Jātakas, of the praehistory of the Sākya race, etc., without any admixture of matter connected with Discipline, it is strange to find it classed as a Vinaya text². For though the Pāli Vinaya contains narrative parts to a considerable extent, no book of it is wholly made up of subjects which otherwise have a place in the Sutta-Piṭaka³. According to Chinese authorities the Mahāvastu is the book that for the Mahāsānghikas represents the Abhiniṣkramaṇa-Sūtra of the Dharmaguptas, and the Lalita-Vistara of the Sarvāstivādins⁴. This statement is wanting in precision, for it is only in those portions which deal with the history of the Bodhisattva up to his reaching Buddhahood that it may be said to answer to the compositions just named. Taken as a whole, the Mahāvastu is a work the contents of which are substantially the same as found in the collections of the orthodox sects, but which in its arrangement follows a totally different method, or rather no method at all. It differs in another respect also from the orthodox texts by its invocation of a plurality of Buddhas⁵. It can hardly be doubted that such an invocation, much resembling that of the Vaipulya-Sūtras marks a period posterior to the reign of Aśoka. A comparison of the language and composition of the Mhv. with other documents leaves the impression that the time of its redaction is intermediate between the date of the P. canon and that of the Vaipulyas.

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¹ Mahāvastu (ed. SENART) I, p. 2.

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² A part of the book is downright a Sūtra, viz. the Avalokita-S., which, however, is designated as a Parivāra or Appendix in II, p. 397.

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³ The same applies to the Tibetan Vinaya (Dulva), though its character approaches that of the Mhv., because it is not only devoted to recording the rules of the Order, but contains a great number of Jātakas, Vyākaraṇas, Sūtras and Udānas. See ROCKHILL, L. of B. p. VI.

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⁴ SENART, Pref. Mhv. I, p. III; BEAL, Romantic Legend p. V; WASSILIEF, B. p. 114.

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⁵ The invocation is: *Oṃ namaḥ Śrī-Mahābuddhāyatītānāgatapratyutpannebhyah sarvabuddhebhyah*. The theory of the plurality of coeval Buddhas in the different quarters is common to all Mahāsānghika sects, according to Kathāv. P. A. XXI, 6, and therefore old, if not originally belonging to the creed.

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In the absence of other texts our notions regarding the arrangement of the Mahāsānghika Scripture must necessarily be very limited. According to Huen Tsang⁶ the old canon of the Mahāsānghikas was fivefold, divided into Sūtra-, Vinaya, Abhidharma-, Saṃyukta-, and Dhāraṇī- (or Vidyādhara-)Piṭaka. We have no means of estimating the value of this statement.

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⁶ Voy. I, p. 158; III, p. 37.

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Burnouf somewhere⁷ remarks that it is strange not to meet with books of Vinaya in the Nepalese collection of Hodgson, and he tries to explain the fact by assuming that in reality the Vinaya is represented by the Avadānas. To this view may be objected that in the Tibetan Do⁸ the Avadānas constitute a part of the Sūtra-Piṭaka, as well as in the Pāli canon⁹. The absence of Vinaya texts in Hodgson's collection — barring the Mahāvastu — may be readily accounted for by the condition of Buddhism in Nepāl, where monasticism has long ago ceased to be an institution.

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⁷ Intr. p. 38.

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⁸ JASB I, p. 384.

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⁹ It is true that the Dīghanikāya preachers did not include the Apadānas in the canon (s. CHILDERS s. v. *nikāya*), but there is no question of the Apad. being incorporated in the Vinaya. Cp. EIN. MÜLLER, Les Apadānas du Sud, in Trans. 10th Congr. of Or. I, 165.

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The Sūtra-Piṭaka of the North is preserved in a Chinese translation¹. Many titles of Sūtras are also known to us from the Tibetan version, some of them in more or less complete translation, e. g. the important Mahāparinirvāṇa-Sūtra². The subject matter of those old Sūtras has passed, more or less modified, into the Vaipulya-Sūtras, forming part of the new or Mahāyānist canon, about which anon.

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¹ The whole divided into 4 Āgamas: Dīrgha-, Madhyama-, Ekottarika-, and Saṃyuktāgama. WASSILIEF, B. p. 115. Whether the Kṣudrāgama, mentioned by Tāranātha p. 42 may be held to be the counterpart of the Khuḍḍa-Nikāya, must be left undecided.

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² ROCKHILL, op. c. p. 123 ff.

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The Abhidharma books corresponding to those in the P. canon, seven in number, have survived in a Chinese translation. It is not a little curious that in more than one source most of them are ascribed to well known disciples of the Buddha³. In how far the original version has been meddled with is a question which can only be solved by those who are able to compare the Chinese translation with the Pāli Abhidharma texts. Works like the Abhidharma-Kośa by Vasubandhu do not belong to the canonical literature.

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³ WASSILIEF, B. p. 107; BURNOUF, Intr. p. 447; Tāranātha p. 296; Vyutp. § 65. The titles and reputed authors are: 1. Jñāna-prasthāna, by Kātyāyana (al. Kātyāyanīputra); cp. the Pali title Paṭṭhāna. 2. Dharmaskandha, by Sāriputra; cp. Dhamma-saṅgaṇi. 3. Dhātu-kāya, by Pūrṇa (al. Vasumitra); cp. Dhātu-kathā. 4. Prajñaptiśāstra, by Maudgalyāyana (with WASSILIEF Amṛtaśāstra by Goṣṭha); cp. Puggala-paññatti; 5. Vijñāna-kāya, by Devakṣema (al. Devaśarman). 6. Saṅgīti-paryāya, by Sāriputra (al. Kauṣṭhila). 7. Prakaraṇa-pāda, by Vasumitra. The these last books may or may not be the counterparts of the P. Vibhaṅga, Kathā-vatthu, and Yamaka. Some of these works are also mentioned by Huen Thsang, Voy. I, p. 102; 109; 123. II, 119; 201; 291.

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The Tripiṭaka so called, has for a large part yielded the material for the Vaipulya-Sūtras, which if not all of them were composed by the Mahāyānists at least been adopted by them and incorporated in their new canon. Outwardly the Vaipulya-Sūtras are distinguished from the older Sūtras by a different manner of composition and by the change of idiom. We regularly find in them sections in a redaction in prose, followed by one in verse, the latter being in substance only a repetition of the former⁴ or, may be, in some cases the source of the narrative in prose. The idiom of the prosaical part is a kind of Sanskrit; that of the verses, Gāthās, is a veiled Prākrit somewhat clumsily sanskritised as much as the exigencies of the metre permitted. In our opinion, there cannot be the slightest doubt that the prose is a regular translation from a Prākrit text into Sanskrit, a comparatively easy task, whereas a rendering of the Gāthās into Sanskrit would be impossible without entirely remodelling most verses. Why and when has the original idiom been replaced by Sanskrit? At present we can do no more but surmise that the translation was resolved upon in order to meet the wants of the times. It has been the common fate of all Prākrits that they became obsolete, whilst the study and practice of Sanskrit have been kept up all over India as the common language of science, literature and refinement, and as a bond between Aryans and Draviḍas. At what time did Sanskrit reconquer its ascendancy? Of course gradually, but we are not in a position to fix the limits of the period with anything like certainty. We would, however, suggest that the necessity of refounding the Scripture made itself felt shortly before or after the Council in the reign of Kaniṣka.

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⁴ BURNOUF, Intr. p. 103.

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Some Vaipulyas are, materially, much like the old Sūtras. Whole passages e. g. of the Lalita-Vistara recur almost word for word in the Pāli Scriptures. In the majority of cases works of the same class show more significant peculiarities. In general it may be said that the stock of tradition, common to all Buddhists, increased among the non-orthodox sects by much additional matter. New mythological beings, such as the Bodhisattvas Avalokiteśvara and Mañjuśrī, make their appearance; a host of Buddhas of the past, present and future are honoured and invoked along with Śākyamuni, whose image, however, far from being effaced, is clad in brilliant majesty more than ever¹.

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¹ BURNOUF, Intr. p. 116 ff.

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All Vaipulya texts we know of are qualified as Mahāyāna Sūtras, and constitute the new or Mahāyānist canon². Since we learn from Chinese authorities that the Lalita-Vistara, a decided Mahāyāna Sūtra, properly belongs to the Sarvāstivādins, we must infer that the Mahāyānists did not scruple to adopt such works of the Hīnayāna sects as fitted in with their system, though we cannot help believing that the text must have undergone modifications.

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² The titles of these Sutras, few of which have been edited, are given in Vyut. § 65; cp. WASSILIEF, B. p. 145 ff. Some titles also occur in the list of the 9 Dharmas — an elliptical phrase for Dharmaparyāyas — with HODGSON, Ess. p. 13, 49. Cp. The Sanskrit Buddhist literature of Nepal, Rājendralāla Mitra (1882); the Catalogue of the HODGSON Collection by COWELL and EGGELING in JRAS of 1875; do. of the Cambridge Collection by BENDALL.

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The chronological questions connected with the rise of Mahāyānism are too vast to admit of an incidental treatment. Here it will suffice to note that the Mahāyāna Sūtra Sukhāvatī-Vyūha or Amitāyus-Sūtra is stated to have been translated into Chinese for the first time AD. 148–170³. If this notice be exact, and equally the tradition that Nāgārjuna, born about the time of the Council under Kaniṣka, was the founder of Mahāyānism, the Sūtra forenamed must have been one of the very first writings composed or adopted by the new sect. In reality Nāgārjuna may have been one of the most talented and influential leaders of the movement rather than its originator.

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³ Sukhāvatī-Vyūha, ed. MAX MÜLLER and BUNYIU NANJIO, pag. IV. — Dates of translation of other books are given in BEAL, Buddhist Tripiṭaka, and BUNYIU NANJIO, Catalogue of the Chinese translation of the B. Tripiṭaka, passim.

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To the Mahāyānists is ascribed the introduction of Dhāraṇīs into the sacred texts⁴. How to reconcile this with the statement by Huen Thsang that the Mahāsānghikas possessed a Dhāraṇi-Piṭaka from the very beginning of their sect? Unless we repudiate the truthfulness of the report altogether, we are driven to the conclusion that the Mahāyānists did not invent the Dhāraṇīs, but only appropriated them as an integral part of their system. There are, indeed, several indications of a certain connection between the tendencies of the Mahāsānghikas and the Mahāyānists, as in the course of this work we shall have occasion to point out. Hence it would be rash to deny the relative trustworthiness of the tradition current in India when the Chinese traveller visited the country. The circumstance that the Dhāraṇīs are visibly accrescences of such texts as the Saddharma-Puṇḍarīka⁵, is no decisive argument against the prior separate existence of the formulas.

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⁴ For a fuller account see BURNOUF, Intr. p. 541 g., WASSILIEF, B. p. 142; 177 ff.

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⁵ See SBE. XXI, Intr. p. XXI.

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Of later growth than the Dhāraṇīs, which are esoteric in their character, are the esoteric Tantras. As to the whole Tantric literature, the full development whereof coincides with the decline of Buddhism, we must content ourselves with referring the reader to the authorities on the subject⁶.

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⁶ BURNOUF, Intr. p. 522–574; WASSILIEF, B., p. 144, 184 ff.; WADDELL, Buddhism of Tibet, p. 129 ff. Several Tantric works are contained in the Catalogue of the HODGSON Collection by COWELL and EGGELING; cp. BURNOUF l. c. and the list in HODGSON, op. c. 38 f. On the influence of Śivaite Tantras on the Buddhist Tantrism of Nepāl see BARTH, Rel. of India p. 201.

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Besides the division of the whole of Holy Scripture into 3 Piṭakas, the Buddhists of the South and the North have in common another into Aṅgas, according to the subject matter. The Pāli denomination of these Aṅgas, 9 in number, are: 1. Sutta, a connected narrative or a collection of verses on one subject; 2. Geyya, mixed prose and verse; 3. Veyyākaraṇa, exposition; it contains, according to the system, the whole Abhidhamma-Piṭaka, further the Suttas which have no Gāthās, and all the other words of Buddha not included in the remaining eight Aṅgas; 4. Gāthā, unmixed verses; 5. Udāna, enthusiastic utterances in prose or verse; in the system: "Suttas connected with stanzas composed under the inspiration of joy"; 6. Itivuttaka, the collection of 101 Suttas beginning with the words: "Thus has Buddha spoken"; 7. Jātaka, stories of one of the former births of Buddha¹; 8. Abbhutadhamma, discourses relating to wonderful and mysterious conditions; 9. Vedalla, a kind of Suttas said to be questions put after feeling a pleasant emotion and contentment, whatever that may mean².

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¹ To the valuable essay "On the Buddhist Jātakas" by S. d'OLDENBURG, already alluded to above p. 2, in JRAS of 1893, p. 301 ff. (originally Russian in Zapiski of 1892) is added a copious bibliographical list of works regarding the Jātakas; other Russian papers of the same author on the Bhadrakalpāvadāna and the Jātaka-mālā are titled "Buddhist Legends" (1894), and "Remarks on Buddhist Art" (1895).

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² The definitions are found in Sumaṅgala-Vilāsinī, vol. I, pag. 23 ff. Cp. CHILDERS s. vv. and the authors there quoted.

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With the N. Buddhists we sometimes find the same number³, but more common is the enumeration of 12 kinds of Dharmapravacanas: 1. Sūtra; 2. Geya; 3. Vyākaraṇa; 4. Gāthā: 5. Udāna; 6. Nidāna; 7. Avadāna: 8. Ityukta (wrongly Itivṛttaka); 9. Jātaka; 10. Vaipulya; 11. Adbhutadharma; 12. Upadeśa⁴. This enumeration agrees with that of the Sinhalese if we deduct Nidāna, Avadāna, and Upadeśa. Nidānas and Avadānas are sufficiently represented in the Pāli canon, but they are not accounted as separate Aṅgas. As to the Vaipulyas, these "treat of several sorts of Dharma and Artha, that is of the several means of acquiring the goods of this world (Artha) and of the world to come (Dharma)". They may safely be identified with the Pāli Vedalla, having nothing but the name in common with the Vaipulya-Sūtras. The Upadeśa, professedly treating of esoteric doctrines, is equivalent to Tantra, which lies outside the pale of original Buddhism.

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³ Saddh. Pund. Ch. II, vs. 45, cp. vs. 44.

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⁴ WASSILIEF, B. p. 109; Dharma-S. LXII, and note; HODGSON, Ess. p. 14; BURNOUF, Intr. 51 ff. — The class of Ityukta is apparently represented by the Sūtra of the 42 Sections (in BEAL'S Cat. p. 188), which has traits in common with the Itivuttaka, though the material agreement, as between Sect. 9 and Sutta 100, is slight.

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In connection with the preceding survey we cannot omit touching upon the question of the original language of the holy books. Although "the Pāli version" — to use the words of Prof. OLDENBERG — "has hitherto shown itself to be the most original, if not the original version", as regards the contents, "it may with certainty be maintained that in one respect, in reference to the dialect, it differs from the original text", the fundamental constituent parts of which were undoubtedly fixed in the idiom of Magadha. It is now universally admitted that Pāli does *not* represent that idiom⁵, whatever may be the different views about the original home of Pāli. The most plausible view is that Pāli originated in Kalinga-Andhra⁶. From an important passage in Culla-Vagga, (V, 33), where we read that Buddha allows every one to study the Buddha-word in his own dialect, we may conclude that at the time when the sacred texts were spread over India "they were certainly not handed over to the different parts of India in the Magadhī language, but in the vernacular dialect peculiar to the several districts". This being taken for granted, nothing prevents us from supposing that the Northern versions which have come to us in Sanskrit and in a certain sanskritised idiom, although ultimately going back to a Māgadhī original, have passed through an intermediate stage, in other words, that Māgadhī was replaced by other local dialects. Now the course of events in India and its literary development have been such that we can readily understand how at a certain period it was thought advisable to sanskritise the sacred texts as much as possible. The more scientifically Sanskrit was learnt by the Buddhists, the more correct their writings. Some renowned names in mediaeval Sanskrit literature belong to authors of the Buddhist persuasion. The steadily growing ascendancy of Sanskrit is visible even in Ceylon, for, not to speak of later inscriptions, we learn from Fa Hian¹ that the Vinaya-Piṭaka and other texts of the Mahiśāsakas in the island were in Sanskrit.

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⁵ Rightly observed already by LASSEN, Indische Alterthumskunde vol. II, p. 488.

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⁶ The question is fully discussed by OLDENBERG, op. c. p. XLVII ff. But cp. WESTERGAARD, Ueber den ältesten Zeitraum der Indischen Geschichte, p. 87; and E. KUHN, Beiträge zur Pali-Grammatik, p. 7, where another hypothesis is propounded. — The significant fact that the word palibodha, common to Māgadhī and Pāli, is replaced by parigodha in the Girnar version of Aśoka Edict V, goes far to prove that the home of Pāli is not to be sought for in W. India.

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¹ Record (LEGGE), p. 111. The doubts entertained by Prof. OLDENBERG (op. c. p. XI.III) are, apparently, based upon the assumption of the Theravāda being the only B. sect in the island.

2. Literature Subsidiary to the Canon. Works on Legendary and Semi-Historical Subjects. Religious Poetry

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The sacred books have naturally given rise to a subsidiary literature in the form of commentaries, manuals, treatises, and the like². The mass of that literature, both in the S. and the N., is so immense that only a very few of the most noteworthy productions can here be treated of.

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² The MSS of Pāli sacred books and their commentaries in the India Office Library have been described by OLDENBERG in JPTS of 1882 (pp. 59-85); a list of the collection in the Bibliothèque Nationale has been published by L. FEER, ib. pp. 32-37; see in that same number of the Journal the lists by FRANKFURTER, and by L. DE ZOYSA; the Bibliography of texts in FRANKFURTER'S Handbook XV-XVIII; of translations, XIX.

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Beginning with the South, we first have the Aṭṭhakathā, a body of commentaries on the various parts of the Tipiṭaka³. According to Simhalese tradition the Aṭṭhakathā was fixed at the first Convocation, and rehearsed at the two following Councils; it was introduced by Mahendra along with the holy texts into Ceylon, and translated by the same into Simhalese; it was not put to writing before the reign of Abhaya Vaṭṭagāmani, in the last century B. C., and retranslated into Pāli by Buddhaghoṣa about A. D. 420⁴. It is easy to see that those statements are a mixture of dogmatical fiction and truth. This much is well ascertained that there existed a collection of commentaries of semi-sacred character under the name of Aṭṭhakathā in the time when the Dīpavaṃsa was written, about A. D. 300, but we are in the dark about the relative age of its various portions, and we possess as yet no sufficient data for making out what has been added or changed after A. D. 300, either by Buddhaghoṣa or by others. The story in the Mahāvaṃsa according to which Buddhaghoṣa translated the whole Aṭṭhakathā is in conflict with some well established facts. The commentary on the Thera- and Therīgāthā titled Paramattha-Dīpanī, and some other commentaries have been composed by Dhammapāla of Kāñcīpura, and not by Buddhaghoṣa¹. Further it should be noted that Buddhaghoṣa in his Samanta-Pāsādikā quotes the Dīpavaṃsa by name. The Aṭṭhakathā being professedly older then the chronicle, his work cannot have been a simple translation, or he must have found those quotations in his original and in that case some portions of the Aṭṭhakathā must have been posterior to the chronicle.

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³ The titles enumerated in CHILDERS s. v. Aṭṭhakathā; Saddh. S. p. 56; MINAYEF Recherches I, 258, from the Gandhavaṃsa.

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⁴ Dīp. XX, 20; Mahāvaṃsa, p. 205 ff. Sum. Vil. I, p. 1. Saddh. S. p. 52 ff. HARDY, E. M. p. 171; cp. M. of B. p. 509 ff.

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¹ Cp. ED. MÜLLER in the Pref. to his edition of the Param.-Dip. and the authorities quoted above.

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Notwithstanding some doubts about the absolute correctness of the Sinhalese accounts, we may hold that the principal Pāli commentaries on canonical works are due to Buddhaghoṣa, as well as the Visuddhimagga², a kind of cyclopaedia of the Buddhist creed. Another work that has been characterized as "a short encyclopaedia of the Buddhist theology and cosmology" is the Sārasaṅgaha³. The commentary on the treatise Kathāvatthu⁴ contains much about the tenets of the various sects.

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² Cp. HARDY, M. of B., p. 512. For an abstract of contents by CARPENTER, see JPTS for 1890, and cp. A. C. WARREN in Trans. 9th Congr. of Or. I, 392.

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³ See K. E. NEUMANN „Des Sārasaṅghaho erstes Kapitel“, text and translation (Leipzig 1891), p. 6.

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⁴ Kathāvatthuppakaraṇaṭṭhakathā, ed. by MINAYEF JPTS of 1889.

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A dogmatical treatise in the form of dialogues between king Milinda⁵ and the Buddhist sage Nāgasena is the work titled Milinda-Pañha⁶. Date and source of the work are uncertain, but for various reasons it must be posterior to the beginning of our era, and have been composed in the North of India, though all quotations from Scripture in it are from the Pāli canon⁷.

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⁵ The Skr. form of Milinda, identified with Menandros, is Milindra in Kṣemendra's Avadana-Kalpalata No. 57, vs. 15. Not unlikely Minara in Tāranātha, p. 23, is another form of the same name.

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⁶ Ed. by TRENCKNER (1880); transl. by Prof. RHYS DAVIDS in SBE. XXXV (1890).

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⁷ The question has been discussed by Prof. D. RHYS DAVIDS in the preface to his translation. On two Chinese translations of the work see E. SPECHT and S. LÉVI in Trans. 9th Congr. of Or. I, 518-529.

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Writings belonging to the class of compendiums, and containing repetitions of passages from more ancient works with more or less apocryphal additions, are the Anāgatavaṃsa or History of future Buddhas⁸, the Saddhamma-Saṅgaha, and the Mahābodhivamsa, which is a translation of a Sinhalese original⁹. The same applies to the Rasavāhinī, a collection of 103 tales¹⁰, the Dāṭhāvaṃsa¹¹ and the Chakesadhātuvamsa¹². A much used compendium of ecclesiastical acts is titled Kammavācā¹³, whereas the chronicles Dīpavaṃsa, Mahāvamsa and Sāsanavaṃsa deserve a special notice on account of their being so highly important for the ecclesiastical history of Ceylon. Interesting notices on Pāli books and authors are contained in the Gandhavaṃsa¹⁴.

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⁸ Ed. by MINAYEF in JPTS of 1886.

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⁹ See STRONG in his ed. p. VIII, where the question of authorship and date is dealt with.

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¹⁰ The four first tales ed. by SPIEGEL in his Anecdota Palica (1845); others by KONOW in DMG of 1889, p. 297 ff.; the 7th Chapter by PAVOLINI (1894).

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¹¹ Ed. by RHYS DAVIDS in JPTS of 1884; by M. C. SWAMY (Lond. 1874).

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¹² Ed. by MINAYEF in JPTS of 1885.

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¹³ See CHILDERS s. v.

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¹⁴ Ed. by MINAYEF in JPTS of 1886. Cp. the same, Recherches I. 257.

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Among the poems in the praise of Buddha we have the Pajjamadhu¹⁵. Another religious poem of didactic character is the Saddhammopāyana¹⁶.

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¹⁵ Ed. by GOONERATNE in JPTS of 1887.

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¹⁶ Ed. by MORRIS in JPTS of 1887.

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Works bearing on philological inquiry, grammars, dictionaries and grammatical papers, are here passed in silence¹.

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¹ A good bibliographical list, up to 1883, is found in FRANKFURTER'S Handbook XX, XXI. For a short description of some valuable works in Simhalese, see HARDY, M. of B. p. 518. Several Pali commentaries, treatises etc. are enumerated in Saddh. S. Ch. XI, and in Gandhavamsa.

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The literary activity of the Northern schools of Buddhists was not inferior to that of the Theravādins, but the ancient texts have only survived in translations or have come to us much altered, if they have not wholly perished. The oldest of the surviving commentaries and treatises are posterior to the Council under Kaniṣka, and all that Huen Thsang tells us² concerning commentaries on Vinaya, Sūtra and Abhidharma being composed at that occasion is nothing else but an echo of the universal Buddhist tradition about the legendary first Council. From nearly that period may date the Vibhāṣā, a commentary on the Abhidharma; it is at any rate anterior to the Abhidharma-kośa by Vasubandhu, who flourished in the 6th century of our era and wrote many other exegetical works on Mahāyāna texts³. The Abhidharma-kośa was again commented by more than one author. To Asaṅga is ascribed a Yogaśāstra or Yogācāryabhūmi-śāstra along with other works of a philosophical character⁴. Diṅnāga wrote a work on logic, the Pramāṇa-samuccaya. Similar works of a more or less polemical character are numerous, but as long as we cannot examine the contents their enumeration is of little use, the more so as the absurd legends about their authors must deter us from entering deeper into the subject. Some celebrities and their works we shall have occasion to notice in Part V, hereafter⁵.

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² Voy. vol. p. 172.

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³ WASSILIEF, B. p. 210; 215; 222. Voy. I, p. 115; IL p. 274. Tār. passim. Cp. MAX MÜLLER, India 302; 308 f.

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⁴ Voy. I, 114; 118. It is strange that Huen Thsang fathers upon him also an Abhidharmakośa, perhaps identical with the Abhidharmasamuccaya in Tār. p. 112.

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⁵ Further notices on renowned mediaeval scholastic writers are found in WASSILIEF, B. p. 200-222. For the commentaries in the Tibetan collections, see CSOMA KÖRÖSI, As. Res. XX, p. 400 ff. — Dictionaries and similar works which will be referred to in the course of this Manual need not to be specified here.

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The N. Buddhists have excelled in various kinds of what may be classed as devotional and edifying literature, so that a high rank must be assigned to not a few of their literary productions on account of the tasteful reproduction of subjects derived from the sacred lore or the lives of Saints. Works as the Buddhacarita of Aśvaghoṣa⁶, the Jātaka-mālā of Ārya Sūra, the Avadāna-kalpalatā of Kṣemendra are noble compositions in every respect. The collection of legendary and semi-historical lore, known under the title of Divyāvadāna, though less refined in language and style, is no less attractive. This valuable collection must have been reduced to its present state in a period after Kaniṣka, for the Dināra repeatedly occurs in it as the name of an Indian coin; yet the constituent parts of it are undoubtedly, for a large part, anterior to A. D. 100, abstraction made of the idiom, which may have been modified. The books of legends called Bhadrakalpāvadāna and Avadāna-śataka are only known from extracts and translations⁷.

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⁶ Ed. by COWELL. For the Chinese transl. see BEAL, SBE. vol, XIX. The first Ch. has been edited by S. LÉVI with a French transl. in JA of 1892. Cf. A. BARTH Bull. Rel. de l' Inde of 1894, p. 16 (separ. copy); LEUMANN, Some Notes on Açvaghosha's Buddhacarita in Wien. Zeitsch. VIII, 193.

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⁷ See S. D'OLDENBURG in Zapiski of 1894; and for the latter work see FÉER, Le livre des Cent Légendes in JA of 1879; his transl. in Ann. Mus. Guimet XVIII. A similar collection in Chinese are the "Contes et Apologues Indiens" (1860), from which STANISLAS JULIEN has published a specimen.

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The published specimens of religious poetry bear the stamp of having been productions in the palmy days of mediaeval Sanskrit literature. The *Bodhicaryāvatāra* by Śāntideva, a poem breathing a truly pious spirit, ranks foremost¹. Almost as elegant in form, but wholly wanting in originality and warmth of feeling is the poem *Śiṣyalekha* by the grammarian Candra-Gomin². Hymns to Śākyasiṃha, Avalokiteśvara etc. are known only from Catalogues³ or occasional quotations.

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¹ Ed. by MINAYEF in Zapiski vol. XV, p. 156—225; partial French transl. by L. DE LA VALLÉE POUSSIN in Museon of 1892. Noteworthy as an indication of the influence of contemporary Hinduistic sentiments is such a passage as we read section 2, vs. 8: *parigraham me kurutāgrasattvāḥ, yuṣmāsu dāsatvam upaimi bhaktyā*. Cp. A. BARTH in Bull. Rel. de l'Inde, (p. 20 separ. copy).

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² Ed. by MINAYEF, with a valuable introduction, in Zapiski IV, p. 29—52; Tibetan text added by IWANOWSKI.

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³ E. g. No. 29—32 in the Catal. of COWELL and EGGELING. Cp. BURNOUF, Intr. p. 557. Specimens of prayers also published by MINAYEF Zapiski II, 130, to Avalokiteśvara; 233, to Buddha; the latter ascribed to the king Harṣadeva.

3. Time of Rise of Buddhism. Indian Thought and Ideals at That Time

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Owing to the unsettled state of Indian chronology we cannot with full certainty fix the absolute date of the Nirvāṇa⁴; yet we may confidently assert that the rise of Buddhism nearly coincides with the close of the Upaniṣad period. From the very tenets of Buddhism it is evident that the theories of the Vedānta had reached their full development, albeit not in the scholastic form of the Brahma-Sūtras. The practices of the Yoga, which though dogmatically no integral part of the Vedānta are not repudiated or disapproved by the Vedāntins, were scarcely less developed in the days of Buddha than later in the time of Patañjali, the author of the manual titled Yoga-sūtra. The doctrine of Karman, of metempsychosis, was already so deeply rooted in the popular conscience that Buddhism has retained it notwithstanding its standing in the most glaring conflict with Buddhist psychology, which denies the existence of soul altogether⁵.

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⁴ The knotty questions connected with Buddhist chronology will be dealt with hereafter, in Part V.

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⁵ Digha-N. I, p. 34; Pugg.-P. p. 38. More about this in the sequel.

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The spiritual aspirations and the views of human life as entertained by the more serious Indians at the rise of Buddhism are, at first sight, extremely gloomy. What strikes us most, is the emphatically pronounced dread — *saṃvega*, as the Buddhists like to call it — of the miseries of life, of old age and death; a dread intensified by the belief in perpetual rebirth, and consequently of repeated misery. All sects — barring the Sadducees of the epoch — agree in the persuasion that life is a burden, an unmixed evil. All accordingly strive to get liberated from worldly existence, from rebirth, from Saṃsāra. All are convinced that there are means to escape rebirth, that there is a path of salvation, that path consisting in conquering innate ignorance and in attaining the highest truth. But what is the highest truth? Here the views go asunder. Some, as the Vedāntins, affirm that truth in the highest sense⁶ of the word is the essential unity of the highest soul, *paramātman*, with the individual soul, *pratyagātman* or *jīvātman*. Others, as the Sāṅkhyas, proclaim that the soul is essentially different from matter, by which it is clogged, though it remains essentially undefiled and eternal¹. The Buddhists, denying the existence of any thing like a soul, necessarily reject the notion of paramātman, and see the highest truth in the formula of the Ārya-satyāni.

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⁶ We avoid using the term "real truth", because reality for the majority of Indian sects is the reverse of truth in the highest sense, of *sat*, τὸ ὄντως ὄν; it being only a relative, practical truth, and passing into a more illusionary appearance, *māyā*.

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¹ For more particulars, here out of place, concerning the speculations of the Upaniṣads and the Sāṅkhya, we refer the reader to the exposition in BARTH'S Religions of India, p. 64—86. Cp. OLDENBERG, Die Religion des Veda und der Buddhismus, in Deutsche Rundschau of Nov. 1895; JACOBI, Der Ursprung des Buddhismus, GGA. 1896.

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The Indian view of life, in the mystical and transcendental systems of the Vedānta and Buddhism, as well as in the rationalistic Sāṅkhya, Yoga, Nyāya, is not seldom considered pessimistic. That qualification is true in a restricted sense, the Indians being pessimists only halfway. Just as they have no objection to the most tragic situations in their dramas, provided the final be a happy one, so they admit of all sorts of dreariness in human life, but at the same time they believe that it is possible, and that by a comparatively easy method, to get rid of the nuisance called existence and rebirth: they have only to follow some one of the infallible teachers of the path to salvation, of whom there was no lack in India. There, too, the rule holds good that the supply is proportionate to the demand.

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