The History of Buddhist Thought c9.s1.8

c9.s1.8

There is a single passage in the Pāli which appears to imply not a wider range of Buddha’s activity than that described above, but a much wider geographical knowledge among the early Buddhists than that implied in most of the texts. It is in the *Anguttara Nikāya*, i, 213, repeated iv, 252, 256, 260, and consists of a list of countries which has been held to be a statement of the political divisions of India in or before Buddha’s time.¹ But the collection of discourses in which it is found has less claim than some of the others to be considered early or as conveying contemporary information. It even contains a legend about king Muṇḍa, the fifth in descent from Buddha’s contemporary Bimbisāra. The passage in question is not one that has any concern with giving geographical information, but merely introduces the names in an illustration. It occurs in a discourse on the merit of keeping the fast day (*uposatha*), and there it is said in verse: