Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c10.9

c10.9

that it has to carefully preserve the doctrine revealed by Buddha, but it is not called upon nor is it competent to improve or extend. "The Order does not lay down what has not been laid down (by Buddha), and it does not abolish what he has laid down; it accepts the ordinances as he has prescribed them, and abides by them"—so traditional legend represents a Church council to have resolved shortly after Buddha's death.* In the sacred texts, accordingly, all regulations, even those obviously belonging to later periods, appear as if they had been issued by Buddha himself. The inconsistency with which, from this very desire to be consistent, they came to act, is characteristic: they had no scruple in giving out as orders of the exalted, holy Buddha, those very rules made by themselves which they shrank from clothing in the time-hallowed form of the Pâtimokkha institutes. The liturgical conscience was stronger than the historical—if, indeed, that complete indifference with which men in India have at all times regarded or rather have not regarded, literary and historical authenticity will allow us in this case to speak of an historical conscience.