In a similar way a considerable interval must have elapsed before the beautiful parable in the last section of Chapter I could have given rise to the belief in the miracle (the soli- tary miracle ascribed to the Buddha, so far as I know, in the Sutta Pi/aka) recorded in the previous section.
So also the comparison drawn between the Buddha and a ATakkavatti R^a or King of Kings in Chapter V, § 37, and Chapter VI, § 33, can scarcely have arisen till the rise of a lord paramount in the valley of the Ganges had fami- liarised the people with the idea of a Universal Monarch. Now it was either just before or just after the well-known Councils at Vesdli, of which mention has been made above, that that important revolution took place which raised a
GENERAL INTRODUCTION. xix
low-caste adventurer to be the first -Sfakkavatti R&ga. *. To the people of that time -STandragupta seemed to be lord of the world, for to them India was the world — just as European writers even now talk complacently of ' the world ' while ignoring three-fourths of the human race.
' Is it surprising,' as I have asked elsewhere, ' that this unity of power in one man made a deep impression upon them? Is it surprising that, like Romans worshipping Augustus, or like Greeks adding the glow of the sun-myth to the glory of Alexander, the Indians should have formed an ideal of their -Sfakkavatti, and have transferred to this new ideal many of the dimly sacred and half-understood traits of the Vedic heroes ? Is it surprising that the Bud- dhists should have found it edifying to recognise in their hero "the ATakkavatti of Righteousness;" and that the story of the Buddha should have become tinged with the colouring of these Afakkavatti myths ? '
In point of fact we know that in later works the attraction of this poetic ideal led to the almost complete disregard of the simpler narrative which seemed so poor and meagre in comparison ; and M. Senart has shown how large a pro- portion of the later poem called the Lalita Vistara is inspired by it. When, in isolated passages of the Book of the Great Decease, we find the earliest germs of this fruitful train of thought, we are I think safe in concluding that it assumed its present form after the notorious career of ATandragupta had made him supreme in the valley of the Ganges.
All the above arguments tend in one direction ; namely, that the final redaction of the Book of the Great Decease must be assigned to the latter part of the fourth century before Christ, or to the earlier part of the following century. And so much alike are it and all the other Suttas translated in this volume in their form, in their views of life, and in
1 I have ventured in my 'Ancient Coins and Measures of Ceylon,* p. 51, to point out that the Councils of Vesali were very possibly held just at the time when Nanda was defeated by ATandragupta. Taranatha, the Tibetan histo- rian, while placing the Councils, like all the later authorities, under an As ok a (probably Aandragupta), says (p. 41 of Wassiliefs German translation) that the assembled brethren were fed by Nanda.
the religious doctrines they lay down, that, though it may be possible hereafter to show that some are a little older or a little younger than the others, every one will I think admit that they must all be assigned to about the same period of time. There is not the least reason to believe that either of them is older than the Book of the Great Decease; and the argument has only been confined to it because it alone deals with the kind of subject which can give foundation to chronological conclusions. When the whole of the literature of the PAli Pi/akas has been fully explored, we may perhaps be able to reach a more definite conclusion.
We are in absolute ignorance as to the actual author of any of the texts I have translated. It is quite evident that they are not the work of Gotama himself; and it is difficult to believe that even his immediate disciples could have spoken of him in the exaggerated terms in which occasionally he is here described. On the other hand, the history of similar religious movements teaches us how quickly such notions spring up concerning the omniscience and sinlessness of the founder of the movement ; and it would be better to reserve our judgment as to the impos- sibility, on this account alone, of those Suttas having been composed even by the very earliest disciples.
It would be of less importance who composed the Suttas if we could be sure that they gave an accurate account of the teachings of the great thinker and reformer whose words they purport to preserve. But though, like all other writings of a similar character, they are doubtless based upon tradi- tions older than the time of their authors or final redactors, they cannot unfortunately be depended upon as entirely authentic. And it will be always difficult, even when the whole of the Suttas have been published, to attempt to discriminate between the original doctrine of Gotama, and the later accretions to, or modifications of it.
But we can already make some steps towards such a discrimination, without much fear of being contradicted.
There can be little doubt but that the doctrines of the Four Noble Truths and of the Noble Eightfold Path, the 'Foundation of the Kingdom of Righteousness/ were not only the teaching of Gotama himself but were the central and most essential part of it. I am aware that no method can be more misleading, or more uncritical, than first to form a theory regarding the personal character of the author of a new religious movement — as some later critics of the Gospel History have done — and then to adopt those pas- sages in the sacred books which fit in with that character, and to reject those which oppose it. We cannot begin by postulating that Gotama was a man of high moral earnest- ness, and of great intellectual acuteness ; and then disregard all the passages in which erroneous, and even puerile, opinions or sayings are placed in his mouth. But it does not follow that we are obliged either altogether to reject the evidence of the Buddhist Scriptures as to what Gotama did actually teach, or altogether to accept it.
It will be acknowledged that the Suttas have preserved for us at least the belief of the earliest Buddhists — the Buddhists in India — as to what the original doctrines, taught by the Buddha himself, had been. We have in the Vinaya Pi/aka an invaluable and indisputable record of the mental characteristics and capabilities of these earliest followers of the Buddhist faith. Sanskrit scholars are engaged in elucidating the history of the beliefs in which Gotama was brought up, and which though often modified and frequently denied, still underlie, throughout, all that he is represented to have taught. We have therefore reliable evidence of the system out of which, and we know the system into which, Gotama's teaching was developed. This being so, it will be impossible to refrain, in despair, from the attempt to solve one of the most interesting problems which die history of the Aryan race presents to us. Scholars will never be unanimously agreed on all points ; but they will agree in ascribing some parts of the early Buddhist Dharma or doctrine only to the early disciples ; and after allowing for all reasonable doubts, they will agree in ascribing other parts to the great Teacher himself. I venture to think
that not only the Four Noble Truths, but the whole of the
Seven Jewels of the Law, may already be placed, with
certainty, in the latter category 1 *
The form, in which these Suttas have been preserved, deserves careful attention. Every reader will be struck at once with the constant repetitions. These repetitions are not essential, and are merely designed to facilitate the learning of the Suttas by heart. Writing was unknown in the age of the Buddha, and probably for long after his time. In all probability indeed, just as the Indians learnt from the Greeks, not the art of coinage, but the custom of issuing a legally authorised coinage 2 ; so it was from the Greeks that they acquired, if not their earliest alphabet, at least the knowledge of the utility of writing. But even for some time after writing was generally known, it was considered a desecration to make use of it for the preservation of the sacred books. This feeling naturally passed away much sooner among the adherents of the popular religious faith of Buddhism, than it did among their conservative opponents. With the latter it is by no means ex- tinct even now, and the first record we have of the Buddhist Scriptures being reduced into writing is the well-known passage in the Dipavawsa, which speaks of their being recorded in books in Ceylon towards the beginning of the first century before the commencement of our era. And as all our copies of the Buddhist Pi/akas are, at present, derived from those then in use in Ceylon, we are practically concerned only with those thus referred to in the Dipa- vawsa 3 .
The date of the Dipava^sa may be placed approxi-
mately in the fourth century of our era ; but its author
reproduces the continued tradition of the monasteries in
1 They will be found enumerated, and shortly described, in a note below (pp. 62, 63). I am glad to learn that my friend Dr. Morris is preparing a rail account of them, drawn from various parts of the Sutta Pi/aka, for his forth- coming work to be accordingly entitled ' The Seven Jewels of the Law.'
2 See my ' Ancient Coins and Measures of Ceylon ' (Part VI of Numismata Orientalia), p. 13.
8 Dlpava/ttsa XX, w. 20, 21, quoted in the Mahavawsa, p. 207.
which he dwelt, and he is more probably correct, than not, in the assertion I have quoted. It would follow that the Buddhist Scriptures were, till then, handed down by word of mouth only and no one who is acquainted with the wonderful powers of memory possessed by Indian priests, who can devote their whole lives to the task of acquiring and repeating their sacred books by heart, will doubt for a moment the possibility of this having been the case.
Two methods were adopted in India to aid this power of memory. One, adopted chiefly by the grammarians, was to clothe the rules to be remembered in very short enigmatical phrases (called sutras or threads), which taxed the memory but little, while they required elaborate com- mentaries to render them intelligible. The other, the method adopted in the Buddhist writings (both Sutta and V in ay a), was, firstly, the use of stock phrases, of which the commencement once given, the remainder followed as a matter of course ; and secondly, the habit of repeating whole sentences, or even paragraphs, which in our modern books would be understood or inferred, instead of being expressed.
The stock phrases, which must be distinguished from the repetitions, belong certainly to a very early period of Buddhism, and many of them recur in Sanskrit as well as in P&li texts l . One result of these numerous repetitions of phrases and paragraphs is that the preservation of the text, when once established, was rendered very easy ; and that mistakes in the MSS. can now be easily rectified when they occur in such repeated passages. To edit the text of such portions of a P&li Sutta is therefore a comparatively easy task ; and it may be said of all the Suttas here translated, that they have thus acquired a valuable protection against that danger of corruption from various readings which often renders uncertain the text of important passages of works written on the very different and simpler system
1 Several examples of such passages occur in the present volume in the Akankheyya- and Maha-sudassana-Suttas, where they are pointed out in the notes.
to which we are accustomed. On the other hand, however,
the catchwords may sometimes have given rise to serious
interpolations.