Studies in the Origins of Buddhism c8.97

c8.97

With regard to these we see “Saṃyukta Ā, est très voisin du texte de l’Avadānaśataka et du Dulva.”³¹ A comparison of these with the Pali version reveals that the most significant difference lies in the absence from the latter of the first verse by an anonymous Bhikkhu pronounced over the death of the master, and of the last two by Ānanda.³² The first verse is of no doctrinal significance; as to the latter, Przyluski suggests that the omission is due to the changed ideas about the cremation of Buddha as a cakravartin, which was contradicted by the verses in question, since these represented Buddha as merely covered by “cīvaras”; hence they were suppressed.³³