At the time when our Book of the Great Decease was put into its present shape, and still more so when a Book of the Great Decease was first drawn up, there may well have been some reliable tradition as to the events that took place, and as to the subjects of his various discourses, on the Buddha's last journey. He had then been a public Teacher for forty-five years ; and his system of doctrine, which is really, on the whole, a very simple one, had already been long ago elaborated, and applied in numerous dis- courses to almost every conceivable variety of circumstances. What he then said would most naturally be, as it is repre- sented to have been, a final recapitulation of the most [11] c
XXxiv THE BOOK OF THE GREAT DECEASE.
important and characteristic tenets of his religion. But these are, of course, precisely those subjects which are most fully and most frequently dealt with in other parts of the P&li Pi/iakas* No record of his actual words could have been preserved. It is quite evident that the speeches placed in the Teacher's mouth, though formulated in the first person, in direct narrative, are only intended to be sum- maries, and very short summaries, of what was said on these occasions. Now if corresponding summaries of his previous teaching had been handed down in the Order, and were in constant use among them, at the time when the Book of the Great Decease was put together, it would be a safe and easy method to insert such previously existing summaries in the historical account as having been spoken at the places where the Teacher was traditionally believed to have spoken on the corresponding doctrines. In the historical book the simple summaries would sufficiently answer every purpose ; but when each particular matter became the subject of a separate book or division of a book, the same summaries would be included, but would be amplified and elucidated. And this is in fact the relation in which several of the recurring passages, as found in the Book of the Great Decease, stand to the same passages when found elsewhere.
On the other hand, some of the recurring passages do not consist of such summaries, but are actual episodes in the history. As an instance of these we may take the long extract at the end of the first, and the beginning of the second chapter (I, 20-II, 3, and again II, 16-II, 24), which is found also in the Mah&-vagga. The words are (nearly 1 ) identical in both places, but in the Book of the Great Decease the account occurs in its proper place in the middle of a connected narrative, whereas in the Mahft- vagga, a treatise on the Rules and Regulations of the Order, it seems strangely out of place. So the passage, also a long one, with which the Book of the Great
1 On the difference see the note at II, 16. It affects only a few localising phrases in a narrative occupying (in the translation) thirteen pages.
Decease commences (on the Seven Conditions of Welfare),
seems to have been actually borrowed by the Anguttara
Nik4ya from our work.
The question of these summaries and parallel passages cannot be adequately treated by a discussion of the in- stances found in any one particular book. It must be considered as a whole, and quite apart from the allied question of the 1 stock phrases ' above alluded to, in a discussion of all the instances that can be found in the P&li Pi/akas. For this purpose tabulated statements are essential, and as a mere beginning such a statement is here annexed (including the passages, marked with an asterisk, which have every appearance of belonging to the same category).
BOOK OF THE GREAT DECEASE.
Chap. I (34 sections) §§ 1-10 J"
Chap. II (35 sections) §§ 1 3, 1 4, 1 5 «
Chap. Ill (66 sections) §§ 1-10
§§ 11-20
§§21-23*
§§ 24-32
§§ 33-42
Chap. IV (58 sections) §§ 2, 3
OTHER BOOKS.
Anguttara (Sutta-nip&ta).
„ (J5T>4a-nip£ta).
Dfgha (Sampasddaniya) and
Saawyutta (Satippa//Mna-
vagga).
Mah&-vagga VI, 28.
Mahi-vagga VI, 29.
Dfgha (Satippa//Mna).
M &^ima „
Saawyutta „
Vibhahga „
Mahi-vagga VI, 30.
Samyutta (Satippa//Adna-
vagga).
( Sa^yutta(Iddhip^da-vagga). \ Anguttara (A/Ma-nip£ta).
Anguttara (A//y&a-nipata).
? Eight Assemblies.
Anguttara (A/Ma-nip&ta).
Anguttara (A/Ma-nipdta).
Anguttara (^atuka-nipdta).
1 Omitted in Pofa-tsu. See below, p. xxxviii. C 2
XXXvi THE BOOK OF THE GREAT DECEASE.
Book of the
GREAT DECEASE.
OTHER BOOKS.
Chap.V (69 sections) §10
. Anguttara (Duka-nipata).
„ (Aatuka-nipata).
Sa^yutta (Satippa//Mna-
vagga).
Digha (Mah& - sudassana -
Sutta).
. -ffulla-vagga V, 8, 1.
. Mahd-vagga I, 38, 1.
. -£ulla- vagga XI, 1, 15.
Chap. VI (62 sections) §16
. Dfgha (Maha-sudassana-
Sutta).
. isTulla-vagga XI, 1, 1.
No Sanskrit work has yet been discovered giving an
account of the last days of Gotama ; but there are several
Chinese works which seem to be related to ours. Of one
especially, named the Fo Pan-ni-pan King (apparently
Buddha-Parinibb&na-Sutta, but such an expression is un-
known in Pali), Mr. Beal says 2 :
'This appears to be the same as the SAtra known in the South. ... It was translated into Chinese by a Shaman called Fa-tsu, of the Western Tsin dynasty, circa aoo A.D.*
I do not understand this date. The Western Tsin
dynasty is placed by Mr. Beal himself on the fly-leaf of
the Catalogue at 265-313 a.d. And whether the book
referred to is really the same work as the Book of the
Great Decease seems to me to be very doubtful. At
p. 160 of his 'Catena of Buddhist Scriptures from the
Chinese ' Mr. Beal says, that another Chinese work ' known
as the Mah& Parinirv&«a Stitra' 'is evidently the same
as the Mah4 Parinibbana Sutta of Ceylon/ but it is quite
evident from the extracts which he gives that it is an
entirely different and much later work.
On this book there would seem further to be a trans- lated commentary, Ta Pan-ni-pan King Lo, mentioned
1 Omitted by Po-fa-tsu. See below, p. xxxviii.
2 Catalogue of Buddhist Chinese Books in the India Office Library, p. 95.
at p. ioo of the same Catalogue, and there assigned to Chang-an of the Tsin dynasty (589-619 A.D.).
At pp. 12-13 of the same Catalogue we find no less than seven other works, and an eighth on p. 77, not indeed identified with the Book of the Great Decease, but bearing titles which Mr. Beal represents in Sanskrit as Mah&pari- nirvdtf a Stitra. They purport to be translated respectively —
A. D.
1. By Dharmaraksha of the Northern Liang dynasty . 502-555
2. By Dharmaraksha „ „
3. By Fa Hian and Buddhabhadra of the Eastern Tsin
dynasty 317-419
4. By Cr»staabhadra and others of the Eastern Tang
dynasty 620-904
5. By Dharmagupta and others of the Western Tsin
dynasty 265-313
6. By Fa Hian of the Eastern Tsin dynasty . . 317-419
7. Unknown,
8. By Dharmabodhi of the Former Wei dynasty . . circa 200
Indian author, Vasubandhu.
Whether Nos. 1 and 2, and again 3 and 6 are the same is not stated; and in the Indian Antiquary for 1875 Mr. Beal gives an account of another undated work, as existing in the India Office Collection, bearing a different title from any of the above, but which he also translates as Mah&parinibb&na Sutta. It purports to be the very oldest of the Vaipulya Stitras, whereas the book quoted in the Catena is there said to be 'one of the latest of the expanded Stitras/ * The general outline/ says Mr. Beal \ ' is this. Buddha, on a certain occasion, proceeded to Kinsinagara (sic), and entering a grove of Sdla trees, there reposed. He received a gift of food from Chanda, an artisan of the neighbouring town. After partaking of the food he was seized with illness. He discoursed through the night with his disciples, and disputed with certain heretical teachers. At early dawn he turned on his right side with his head to the north, and died. The S&la trees bent down to form a canopy over his head. The account then proceeds to relate
Indian Antiquary, vol. iv. p. 90.
XXXVlii THE BOOK OF THE GREAT DECEASE.
the circumstances of his cremation, and the subsequent disputes, between the Mallas . and others, for his ashes.'
There is a curious echo here of some of the sections translated below ; though each particular item of the summary is really in contradiction with the corresponding part of the P&li book. There is perhaps another Chinese work on the death of Buddha, of the existence of which I have been informed, through the kind intervention of Pro- fessor Max Miiller, by Mr. Kasawara. It was translated by Po-fa-tsu between 290 and 306 a.D. It sefcms to be the same as the first mentioned above, but it contains a good deal of matter not found in the Mah&-parinibbAna-Sutta (notably an account of the Rl^agaha Council, the mention of which is so conspicuously absent from the Pili work) ; and it omits many of the sections found in the P&li. Mr. Kasawara has been kind enough to send me the following details regarding those omissions, and they are of peculiar interest as compared with the table given above 1 :
Chapters in the Pali. Sections wanting in Chinese.
There is no evidence to show that any of the above works are translations of our Sutta, or in any sense the same work. No reliance, in fact, can be placed upon the mere similarity of title in order to show that a Chinese work and an Indian one are really the same : and I regret that attempts should have been made to fix the date of Indian works by the fact that Chinese translations bearing similar titles are said to have been made in a certain period. But the above-mentioned works on the Great Decease will, when published, throw valuable light on the traditions of different, though no doubt later, schools of Buddhist thought ; and a detailed comparison would pro- bably throw a very interesting light on the way in which
1 On p. xxxvi.
religious legends of this kind vary and grow ; and the
existence of these Chinese translations affords ground for
the hope that we may some day discover an earlier
Sanskrit work on the same subject 1 .
The cremation ceremonies described in the sixth chapter are not without interest. It would be natural enough that Gotama should have been buried without any of those ritual- istic forms the usefulness of which he denied, and without any appeal to gods whose power over men he ignored. But the tone of the narrative makes it at least possible that there was not really anything unusual in the method of his cremation ; and that the elaborate rites prescribed in the Brihmanical books for use at a funeral 8 were not, in practice, observed in the case of the death of any person other than a wealthy Br&hman, or some layman of rank who was a devoted adherent of the BrAhmans.
In the same way we find that in those countries where the more ancient form of Buddhism still prevails, there are a few simple forms to be used in the case of the cremation of a distinguished Bhikkhu or Up&saka; but in ordinary cases bodies are buried without any ceremony.
So in Ceylon, Robert Knox — whose rare and curious work, one of the most trustworthy books of travels extant, deserves more notice than it has received, and who was a captive there for many years before the natives were influ- enced by any contact with Europeans — says s ,
c It may not be unacceptable to relate how they burn their dead. As for persons of inferior quality, they are interred in some convenient places in the woods (there being no set places for burial), carried thither by two or three of their friends, and buried without any more ado. They lay them on their backs, with their heads to the West, and their feet to the East, as we do. Then these people go and wash : for they are unclean by handling the dead.
1 I have not been able to trace any reference to either of these Chinese works in Mr. Edkins's ' Chinese Buddhism.' 8 See Max MuUer in Z. D. M. G., vol. ix. ' Knoxs 'Historical Relation of Ceylon,' Part III, Chap. xi.