Now we
know from the Mahā-parinibbana Suttanta that (at the time when that very
composite work was put together in its present shape) Vesāli and the whole
Vajjian confederacy was considered to have remained independent of
1 Divyāvadāna 515-544.
know from the Mahā-parinibbana Suttanta that (at the time when that very
composite work was put together in its present shape) Vesāli and the whole
Vajjian confederacy was considered to have remained independent of
1 Divyāvadāna 515-544.
Cambridge History of India - v1
confirmed by the standing epithet of Vedehi-putto, son of the princess of
Videha, in the older Buddhist books, makes him a son of Chellanā.
Buddhaghosa has preserved what is no doubt the traditional way of
explaining away the evidence contained in the epithet? . But the matter
cannot be further discussed here.
One of the very oldest fragments preserved in the canon is a ballad
on the first meeting of Bimbisāra and Gotama. In the ballad the latter is
called 'the Buddha. ' But the meeting took place about seven years before
he became the Buddha in our modern sense ; and this unwonted use
of a now familiar title would have been impossible in any later documenta.
Gotama has only just started on his search for truth. The king, with
curious density, offers to make him a captain, and give him wealth. It
will be noticed that the king still resides in the palace of the old capital at
the Giribbaja, 'the Hill Fort'. Some years afterwards when Gotama
returns as a teacher, tbe king was lodged in the new palace that gave its
name to the new capital, Rājagaha, 'the King's House. ' The ruins of both
these places are still extant; and the stone walls of the Giribbaja are
probably the oldest identified remains in India. Dhammapāla says that the
place was originally built or planned by Mahā-Govinda, the famous
architect, to whom it was the proper thing to ascribe the laying out of
ancient cities.
On Gotama's second visit to Rājagaha Bimbisāra presented him
with the Bamboo Grove, where huts could be built for the accommodation
of the Ordert - just as he endowed also the opposite teaching”. We hear
very little about him in the books. He is not even mentioned in three out
of the four Nikāyas, and the few references in the fourth are of the most
meagre kind. But the Vinaya gives a short account of an attempt made
by Ajātasattu to kill his father with a sword", and in the closing words of
the Sāmañña-phala there is an allusion to the actual murder which he
afterwards committed? The commentary on that Suttanta gives a long
account of how it happened. The details may or may not be true ; but
the main fact that Bimbisāra was put to death by his son Ajātasattu may
be accepted as historical. The Ceylon chronologists place this event
1 Sum. I, 139. Cf. Diulogues, II, 78.
2 Sutta Nipāta, verse 408. See Dialogues, II, 2. The ballad is translated in Rh. D. ,
Early Buddhism, 31-34.
3 Vimāna-vatthu Commentary, p. 82, and above p. 154.
4 Vinaya 1, 39. 5 Ligha I, 111, 127.
Vinaya II, 190 7 Dīgha I, 86,
8 Sum. I, 133-136; Peta-v, A. 105.
6
## p. 164 (#198) ############################################
164
[сн
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE BUDDHISTS
eight years before the Buddha's death, at the time when Bimbisāra; who
had come to the throne when he was fifteen, had reigned fifty-two years. ".
On the death of Bimbisāra, his wife, the Kosala Devi, is said by
tradition to have died of grief? .
The
government revenues of an estate in
Kāsi had been settled upon her by Mahā-Kosala as pin-money on her
marriage. At her death the payment of course ceased. Ajātasattu then
invaded Kāsi. It seems incredible that this could have been the real
motive of the war, unless the kings of that place and time were less
expert in inventing pretexts for a war which they wanted than modern
kings in Europe. The war itself is however mentioned in the Canon", and
with some detail. In the first campaign Ajātasattu out-manæuvred his
aged uncle, and drove him back upon Sāvatthi. In the next, however,
Pasenadi lured his nephew into an ambush, and he was compelled to
surrender with all his force. But Pasenadi soon set him at liberty,
gave him back his army, and, according to the commentary, gave him
also one of his daughters in marriage.
In the opening paragraph of the Maha-parinibbāna Suttanta' we hear
of Ajātasattu's intention to attack the Vajjian confederacy, and, as the first
step in the attack, of his building a fortress at Pāțaliputta, the modern Patna,
on the south bank of the Ganges, the then boundary between his territory
and theirs. The minister in charge of this work was a Brāhman, known to
us only by his official title, 'the Pain-maker' (Vassakāra). He fled suddenly
to the Vajjian capital Vesāli, giving out that he had barely escaped with his
life from Ajātasattu. The Vajjians gave him refuge and hospitality. He then
dwelt among them, carefully disseminating lies and slanders until he judged
the unity of the confederation to be finally broken. Three years after his
kindly reception he gave the hint to his master, who swooped down on
Vesāli, and destroyed it, and treated his relatives very much as Vidūdabha
had treated his. We can only hope this ghastly story of dishonour, trea-
chery, and slaughter is a fairy-tale. The question can only be discussed
with profit when we have the whole of the commentary before us.
The son of Ajātasattu is mentioned in the Canon. His name was
Udāyi-bhadda, and it follows from the statements of the Ceylon Chronicles
that he succeeded his father on the throne. This is confirmed in the com-
mentaries? The name also occurs in medieval Jain and Hindu lists, inde-
pendent no doubt, both of them, of the Buddhist books.
1 Dip. III, 56. 60 ; Mhr, II, 29, 30.
2 Jät. II, 403.
3 Samyutta I, 84-86. Cf. Dhp. A. III, 259; Jāt. IV, 342.
4 Rh. D. , Dialogues of the Buddha, II, 78.
5 Digha I, 50-Dialogues, I, 68.
6 Dip. V, 97; Mhv. IV, 1.
7 Smp. 321 ; Sum. 1, 153-4.
8 V. inf. , pp. 168-69.
## p. 165 (#199) ############################################
VII)
AVANTI
165
III. AVANTI
The king of Avanti in the Buddha's time was Pajjota the Fierce, who
reigned at the capital Ujjeni. There is a legend about him which shows
that he and bis neighbour king Udena of Kosambi were believed to have
been contemporaries, connected by marriage, and engaged in war. The
boundary is not given, but a commentary mentions incidentally that the two
capitals were in round numbers fifty yojanas, about four hundred miles,
apart. We have seen that when the Nikāyas were composed Avanti was
considered to have been one of the important kingdoms of India before the
Buddha's time. Shortly after the Buddha's death Ajātasattu is said to
have been fortifying his capital, Rājagaha, in anticipation of an attack by
Pajjota of Avanti? . The king of the Sūrasenas, at Madhura, in the Buddha's
time, was called Avantiputto ; and was therefore almost certainly the son
of a princess of Avanti'. The Lalita-vistara gives the personal name of the
king of Madhura in the year of the Buddha's birth as Subāhu', and this
may be the same person.
Avanti became from the first an important centre of the new doctrine
we now call Buddhism in India it was not so called till centuries later).
Several of the most earnest and zealous adherents of the Dhamma were either
born or resided there. Abhaya Kumāra is mentioned and Isidāsiand
Isidatta8 and Dhammapāla' and Sona Kuţikaņņa10, and especially Mahā.
Kaccānall. The last of these is stated to have been called by the Buddha the
most pre-eminent of those of his disciples able to expound at length, both
as to form and meaning, that which had been said in short. The last but one,
Soņa, wās in a similar way declared to be the most eminent of the disciples
distinguished for beauty of expression. In what language were they supposed
to have exercised these literary gifts ? It was certainly not the religious
language then current in the priestly schools of Brāhmanism. This archaic
form of speech which has been preserved in the Brāhmaṇas and Upanishads
was called by the grammarians chhāndasa, 'the language of chhandas or Ved
poetry,' to distinguish it from the laukika or 'secular' language ; and the
Buddha had expressly forbidden his 'word' to be put into chhandas. Each
disciple was to speak the word in his own dialect13. It would be a
mistake, however, to be misled by the ambiguities of the word dialect,
and to suppose it to mean here the language as spoken by any peasantry.
1 Buddhist India, 4-7.
2 Above, p. 153. Cf. Jāt. IV, 390.
3 M. III, 7.
M. I), 83.
5 Ed. Rajendra Lal Mitra, p. 24. 6 Thag. A. 39.
7 Thig, A. 261-4
8 S. IV, 288 ; Thag. 120.
9 Thag. 204.
10 Vinaya Texts, II, 32 ; Thag. 369 ; Ud. V. 6.
11 Samyutta III, 9; IV, 117; Anguttara I, 23; V, 46 ; Majjhim ı III, 194, 223.
12 Cf. Dhp. A. IV, 101.
13 Vinaya II, 139. Cf. the note in Vinıyı Texts, III, 150.
## p. 166 (#200) ############################################
166
[CH.
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE BUDDHISTS
The higher ethics and philosophy of 'the Word could not be discussed in any
such dialect. Now for two or three generations before the birth of the
Buddha, the so-called Wanderers' were in the habit of passing from Avanti
to Sāvatthi, from Takkasilā to Champā, discussing in the vernacular, wher-
ever they went or stayed, precisely such questions. They had invented or
adapted abstract words and philosophical or ethical terms useful for their
purpose, equally current in all the dialects; while during the same period
there had been developed in the rising kingdoms, and especially in Kosala
(in the very centre of the regions covered by the Wanderers, and by for the
largest and most important of them all ) the higher terms necessary for legal
and administrative purposes. Just as the Christians adopted for their propa-
ganda, not classical Greek but the Greek of the Koin, the varying dialect
understood through all the coasts and islands of the Eastern Mediterranean,
which they found ready to their hands ; so the Buddha and his followers
adopted this common form of vernacular speech, varying no doubt slightly
from district to district, which they found ready to their hands. The parti-
cular form of this common speech, the then Hindustāni, in which the Pāli
Canon was composed, was almost certainly, as the present writer ventured
to suggest nearly forty years ago on historical grounds, and as Professor
Franke contends on philological grounds", the form that was current in
Avanti'. If that be so, it could be said that Buddhism, born in Nepāl, received
the garb in which we now know it in Avanti, in the far West of India. It is
t'ue that no such curt summary of a great movement can be sufficient. But
this would be nearer to the facts than that other summary, so often put
forward as convenient, that Buddhism arose in Magadha and that its
original tongue was Māgadhi,
Il'. THE VAMSAS
The King of the Vamsas in the Buddha's time is called in the Canon
Udena. His father's name was Parantapa, and his son's name Bodhi
Kumāra’. But Udena survived the Buddhas, and we are not informed
whether Bodhi did or did not succeed him on the throne. Tradition has
preserved a long story of the adventures of Udena and his three wives. We
have it in two recensions - a Pāli one, the Udena-vatthu'; and a Sanskrit one
1 See Buddhist India, 141-46.
2 Rh. D. in Trans. Phil. Soc. 1875. 3 R. Otto Franke, Pali und Sanskrit, 1902.
4 Cf. Windisch, Algiers Cong. of Orientalists, 1906; and Rh. D. , Buddhist India,
140-61.
5 For this view see the references given by Winternitz, Gesch. d. ind. Lit. II,
i, p. 10, note 3.
6 Udine VII, 10; Samyutta IV', 110-13.
i l'inaya IT, 127 ; IV, 198 ; Majjhima II, 97 ; Jātaka III, 157.
8 Petri-lutthu Commentary ] 10.
9 In Nor. nan's Drammapa la Commentary I, 161-230.
## p. 167 (#201) ############################################
VII]
THE VAMSAS
167
near
the Mākandika-avadāna'. It is quite a good story, but how far each episode
may be founded on fact is another question. The capital was Kosambi, the
site of which has been much discussed”. It seems to have been on the south
bank of the Jumna, at a point about 400 miles by road from Ujjeni, and
about 230 miles up stream from Benares. One route from Ujjeni to
Kosambi lay through Vedisa, and other places whose names are given but of
which nothing else is at present known! There were already in the time of
the Buddha four establishments or settlements of the Order in or
Kosambi, each of them a group of huts under trees. One of them was in
the ārāma or pleasaunce of Ghosita, two more in similar parks, and one in
Pāvāriya's Mango Grove'. The Buddha was often there, at one or other of
these settlements ; and discourses he held on those occasions have been
handed down in the Canon. King Udena was at first indifferent or even
unfriendly. On one occasion, in a fit of drunken jealousy he tortured a
leading member of the Order, Piņdola Bhāradvāja, by having a basket full of
brown ants tied to his body. But long afterwards, in consequence of a con-
versation he had with this same man Piņdola, he professed himself a disciple.
We have no evidence that he progressed very far along the path ; but his
fame has lasted in a curious way in Buddhist legends. For instance there is
an early list of the seven Con-natals (sahajātā), persons born on the same
day as the Buddha? . The details of the lists differ; and already in the Lalita-
vistara it has grown into several tens of thousands, still arranged however
in seven groups8. Many centuries afterwards we find the name of Udena
appearing in similar lists recurring in Tibetan and Chinese books'.
THE FIRST GREAT GAP
The passages referred to above tell us a good deal of the political
condition of India during the Buddha's life, and enable us to draw certain
conclusions as to previous conditions for some time before the birth of the
Buddha. There are also one or two passages in the Canon which must refer
to dates after the Buddha's death. Perhaps the most remarkable is the verse
in the Pārāyana (a poem now included in the Sutta Nipāta) which, referring
to a time when the Buddha was alive, calls Vesāli a Magadha city10.
Now we
know from the Mahā-parinibbana Suttanta that (at the time when that very
composite work was put together in its present shape) Vesāli and the whole
Vajjian confederacy was considered to have remained independent of
1 Divyāvadāna 515-544. (Ed. Cowell and Neil. )
2 For different views see T. Watters, On Yuan Chwang, I, 366-9 and Chapter XXI.
3 Buddhist India, p. 36.
4 Sutta Nipāta, 1011.
5 Vin. IV. 16 ; Sum. 319.
6 Jätaka IV, 375.
7 See Rh. D. , Buddhist Birth Stories, note on p. 68.
8 Lalita-vistaraed Rajendralal Mitra, p. 109.
9 Rockhill, Life, 16, 17; Watters, On Yuan Chwang, I, 368.
10 Sutta Nipäta, 1013.
## p. 168 (#202) ############################################
168
[ch.
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE BUDDHISTS
Magadba up to the end of the Buddha's life! . If therefore the reading in
our text of the Pārāyana be correct, the expression 'Magadha city' must be
taken in the sense of ‘now a Magadha city,' and as alluding to the conquest
of Vesāli as described above, p. 164. But it is apparently the only passage
in the Canon which takes cognisance of that event. Again in the Anguttara
we have a sutta' in which a king Munda, dwelling at Pāțaliputta, is so over-
whelmed with grief at the death of his wife Bhaddā that he refuses to have
the cremation carried out according to custom. But aftor a simple talk
with a thera named Nārada he recovers his self-possession. We learn from
the chronicles that King Munda was the grandson of Ajātasattu and began
to reign about the year 40 A. B. " It is a fair inference from this episode that
Pāțaliputta had already at that time become the capital of Magadha.
Nārada is said to have lived in the Kukkuțārāma, no doubt consisting of a
few huts or cottages scattered under the trees in the pleasaunce so called,
It was a well-known resting place for the Buddhist Wanderers, and Asoka
is said to have built a monastery on the site of it. '
The long poem of old Pārāpariya, a laudator temporis acti, on the
decay of religion since the death of the Master', adds nothing to political
history. So also the edifying ghost-story recorded in the Peta-vatthu (II
10) can only, at most, give us the name of a sort of public-works officer at
Kosambi shortly after the Buddha's death.
These few details are all that we can glean from the Theravāda Canon
concerning the history of India for more than a hundred and sixty years.
And the chroniclers and commentators do not add very much more. They
have preserved indeed a dynastic list of the kings of Magadha with regnal
years of most of the kings. The list is as follows:
Ajātasattu reigned 32 years
Udãyi-bhadda
Anuruddha
Munda
Nágadāsaka
24
Susunāga
Kālāsoka
His 10 sons
22
Nine Nandas
Chandagutta
24
There are other lists extant, not so complete, and not always with the
regnal years given, in Jain, Hindu, or Buddhist Sanskrit works. They have
been carefully compared and discussed by W. Geiger, in a very reasonable
1 Dialogues, II, 78-80.
2 A. III, 57-63.
3 Jahāvamsa IV, 2, 3 ; Divyāvadānı 369.
4 S. V, 171; d. V, 312 ; J. I, 350 ; Divy. 368, 434 ; T. Watters, On]Yuan
Chuang, II, 98, 99.
5 Thera-gåthā, 9. 20-48.
16
}
8
18
28
22
? ?
## p. 169 (#203) ############################################
VII]
CHANDAGUTTA
169
and scholarly way 1. He comes to the conclusion that, on the whole, the
above list is better supported than the others. This may well be the case ;
but at the same time it must be confessed that the numbers seem much too
regular, with their multiples of six and eight, to be very probably in
accordance with fact. And we are told nothing at all of any of the other
kingdoms in India, or even of the acts of the kings thus named, or of the
extent of the growing kingdom of Magadha during any of their reigns. The
list gives us only the bare bones of the skeleton of the history of one
district.
CAANDAGUTTA
When the curtain rises again we have before us a picture blurred and
indistinct in detail, but in its main features made more or less intelligible by
what has been set out above.
India, as shown in the authorities there quoted, appeared as a number
of kingdoms and republics with a constant tendency towards amalgamation.
This process had proceeded further in Kosala than elsewhere ; that great
kingdom being by far the most important state in Northern India, and very
nearly if not quite as large as modern France. It occupied the very centre
of the territories mentioned in those authorities ; it had its capital near the
borders of what is now Nepāl ; and it included all the previous states
or duchies between the Himālayas on the north and the Ganges on the west
and south. The original nucleus of this great kingdom was the territory
now the seat of the Gurkhas, and these Kosalans were almost certainly, in
the main at least, of Āryan race. For the heads of houses among them (the
gahapatis) are called rājāno, the same as the clansman (the kula-puttā) in the
free republics. Of the surrounding kingdoms Magadha, though much
smaller, was the most progressive. It had just absorbed Anga, and at the
Jast moment we saw it attacking, and with success, the powerful Vajjiap
confederation. The rise of this new star in the extreme South-East was the
most interesting factor in the older picture.
The new picture as shown in the Ceylon Chronicles and in the classi-
cal authors (especially those based on the statemerts in the Indika of Megas-
thenese) show us Magadha triumphant. All the kingdoms, duchies, and
clans have lost their independence. Even the great Kosalan dominion has
been absorbed. And for the first time in the history there is one paramount
authority from Bengal to Afghānistān, and from the Himālayas down to
the Vindbya range.
We shall probably never know how these great changes, and especially
the fall of Kosala, were brought about. And we have no information as to
the degree in which the various local authorities retained any shadow of
power. Were the taxes fixed by the central power and collected by its own
1 Mahāramsa (English, translation), Intr. pr. xl-xlvi.
## p. 170 (#204) ############################################
170
[CH.
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE BUDDHISTS
officers ? Or were the local rates maintaind and collected by a local
authority ? If the latter, were the actual sums received paid over to the
central office at Pataliputta, or was a yearly tribute fixed by the paramount
power ? On these and similar questions we are still quite in the dark. But
our two sets of authorities, which are quite independent of one another,
agree in the little they do tell us.
Unfortunately each set is open to very serious objections. The
Chronicles are quite good as chronicles go, and we have them not only com-
plete but well edited and translated. But of course we cannot expect
from documents written fifteen hundred years or more ago, any of that
historical criticism that we are only just beginning to use in the West. They
are written throughout for edification, and in the Mahāvamsa sometimes
also for amusement ; they are in verse, and are not infrequently nearer to
poetry than history; and though based on a continuous tradition, that
tradition is now lost. On the other hand, the work of Megasthenes,
written during the life-time of Chandagutta, is itself lost. What we have
are fragments preserved more or less accurately, and with the best
intentions, by later Latin and Greek authors. Where what is evidently
intended as a quotation from the same passage in Megasthenes is found in
more than one of these later authors the presentations of it do not, in
several cases, agree. This throws doubt on the correctness of those quota-
tions which, being found in one author only, cannot be so tested. A number
of the quotations contain statements that, as they stand. , are glaringly
absurd-stories of gold-digging ants, men with ears large enough to sleep in,
men without mouths, and so Strabo therefore calls Megasthenes
mendacious. But surely such stories and other things) only show that
Megasthenes was just as ignorant of the modern rules of historical
evidence as the Chroniclers were and for the same reason, Strabo's idea of .
criticism is no better than that of those who ignore the Chroniclers on the
ground that they are mendacious. As will be seen in Chapter XVI which
deals more fully with the Greek and Latin writers on Ancient India, it is
more probable that in these fairy-tales of his Megasthenes, like Herodotus
before him, had either accepted in good faith stories which were current in
the India of his day, or had merely misunderstood some Indian expression.
AGE OF THE AUTHORITIES USED
It remains now to give some account of the literature from which our
knowledge of early Buddhism is chiefly derived, and so form some
estimate of its value as source of history. This literature which deals
mainly with ethics and religion, grew up gradually among those followers of
the Buddha who dwelt in the republics and kingdoms specified above.
There are now 27 books, and only three of them deal with the rules of the
Order. But these 27 are mostly anthologies of earlier shorter passages.
on.
## p. 171 (#205) ############################################
VII ]
ANTIQUITY OF SOURCES
171
>
The Pātimokkha for instance-one of the earliest documents - has 227
suttas, and they are of the average length of about three lines; and the
Silas, a string of moral injunctions, are, if taken separately, quite short.
But neither of these tracts, each of them already a compilation, now exists
as a separate book. They are found only as imbedded in longer works of
later date. It took about a century for the more important works, the
Vinaya and the four Nikāyas', to be nearly finished about as we have
them. (See p. 173 )
The next century and a half saw the competition of the supplementary
works-the supplements to the Vinaya and the four Nikāyas; the thirteen
books of the supplementary fifth Nikāya (much of it based on older
material) ; and the seven Abhidhamıma books, mainly a new classification of
the psychological ethics the four Nikāyas.
So far the books had been divided into Dhamma and Vinaya ; that is
to say, religion and the regulations of the Order. Now, after the close of
the canon, a new division begins to appear, that into three Pițakas (or
Baskets) of Vinaya, Sutta, and Abhidhamma. We do not yet know exactly
when or why this new division arose and superseded the older one”. As late
as the fifth cent. A. D. we find Buddhaghosha still putting the Vinaya and
the Abhidhamma into the supplementary fifth Nikāya", though he and other
commentators also use the newer phrase'.
The authorities on which our account of early Buddhist history is
based are therefore the Nikāyas, with occasional use of other works
mainly of such as are included in the fifth or supplementary Nikāya.
Concerning the period to which the Nikāyas belong we have some evidence,
partly internal and partly external. To take the latter first :
Asoka in the Bhabra Edict recommends his co-religionists the special
study of seven selected passages. Two of the titles given are ambiguous.
Four of the others are from the four Nikāyas, and the remaining one from
the Sutta Nipāta now included in the fifth Nikāya. As was pointed
out a quarter of a century ago it is a critical mistake to take these titles as
the names of books extant in Asoka's time.
They are the names of
1 The titles of the five Nikāyas are as follows ; 1. Digha=the long Suttas; 2.
Majjhima=the Suttas of medium length; 3. Samyuta=Suttas forming connected
groups ; 4. Anguttara=Suttas arranged according to a progressive enumeration (from
one to eleven) of the subjects with which they deal; 5. Khuddaka=smaller works
and miscellanea,
? Perhaps the oldest reference to the three Pițakas is in Kanishka's Inscr. , Ep.
Ind. VIII, 176.
3 Attha-sālini, 26.
4 Ibid. 27; Sum. V'il. I, 15. So also Mil. 21, 90 ; Thig. A. 199; Dhp. A. III, 385.
5 Rh. D. , Questions of King Milinda, I, xxxvii ff.
## p. 172 (#206) ############################################
172
[CH.
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE BUDDHISTS
edifying passages selected from an existing literature. It is as if an old
inscription had been found asking Christians to learn and ponder over the
Beatitudes, the Prodigal Son, the exhortation to the Corinthians on
Charity, and so on.
There are
no such titles in the New Testament,
Before short passages could be spoken of by name in this familiar manner
a certain period of time must have elapsed; and we should be justified in
assuming that the literature in which the passages were found was therefore
older than the inscription'.
Further, in certain inscriptions in the Asoka characters of a
somewhat later date there are recorded names of donors to Buddhist
monuments. The names being similar, distinguishing epithets are used
--X. who knows Suttantas, X. who knows the Pitaka (or perhaps the
Pitakas, Peaki), X. who knows the five Nikāyas. These technical terms as
names fir books are, with one exception, found only is that collection we
now call the Pāli Pitakas. The exception is the word Pijaka. That is not
found in the four Nikāyas in that sense ; and even in the fifth Nikāya it is
only approximating to that sense and has not yet reached it. One
would naturally think, if these Nikāyas had been put together after these
inscriptions, that they would have used the term in the sense it then
had, and has ever since continued to have ; more especially as that sense--
the whole collection of the books-is so very convenient, and expresses an
idea for which they have no other word.
Thirdly, the commentators both in India and Ceylon say that the
Kathā-vatthu, the latest book in the three Pitakas, as we now have them,
was composed by Moggaliputta Tissa at Asoka's court at Pataliputta in
N. India at the time of the Council held there in the eighteenth year of
Asok a's reign. At the time when they made this entry, the commentators
held the Pițakas to be the word of the Buddha, and believed also that
the Dhamma had been already recited at the Council held at Rājagaha
after the death of the Buddha. It seems quite impossible, therefore, that
they could have invented this information about Tissa. They found it in
the records on which their works were, based ; and felt compelled to
hand it on. Being evidence, as it were, against themselves, it is especially
worthy of credit. And it is in accord with all that we otherwise know.
Anyone at all acquainted with the history of the gradual change in
Buddhist doctrine, and able to read the Kathāvatthu, will find that it is
just what we should expect for a book composed in Asoka's time. It has
now been edited and translated for the Pāli Text Society; and not a single
phrase or even word has been found in it referable to a later date. It
quotes largely from all five Nikāyas? .
1 See J. P. T. S. , 1896.
2 See the passages collectnd in Dialogues of the Buddha, I, pp. xi, xii.
## p. 173 (#207) ############################################
VII]
THE NIKĀYAS
173
or
The above is all the external evidence as yet discovered, and the
third point, though external as regards the Nikāyas, is internal at regards
the Pitakas. The internal evidence for the age of the Nikāyas is very
small, but it is very curious.
Firstly, the four Nikāyas quote one another. Thus Anguttara v, 46
quotes Samyutta í 126 ; but in giving the name of the work quoted it
does not say Samyutta but Kumāri-pañha—the title of the particular Sutta
quoted. The Samyutta quotes two Suttantas in the Digha by name-
the Sakka-pañha and the Brahma-Jāla'. It follows that, at the time when
the four Nikāyas were put together in their present form, Suttas and
Suttantas known by their present titles were already current, and handed
down by memory, in the community.
More than that there are, in each of the four Nikāyas, a very large
number of stock passages on ethics found in identical words in one
more of the others These accepted forms of teaching, varying in length
from half a page to a page or more, formed part of the already existing
material out of which the Nikāyas were composed. Some of the longer
Suttantas consist almost entirely of strings of such stock passages.
There are also entire episodes containing names of persons and
places and accounts of events-episodes which recur in identical terms in
two or more of the Nikāyas. About two-thirds of the Mahā-parinibbāna
Suttanta consists of such recurring episodes or stock passages? . This
will help to show the manner in which the books were built up.
Several conversations recorded in the Nikāyas relate to events which
occurred two or three years after the Buddha's death ; and one passage
(Anguttara 111 57-62) is based on an event about 40 years after it.
The four Nikāyas occupy sixteen volumes of Pāli text. They contain
a very large number of references to places, No place on the East
of India south of Kalinga, and no place on the West of India, south
of the Godāvari, is mentioned. The Asoka Edicts, dealing in a few
pages with similar matter, show a much wider knowledge of South India,
and even of Ceylon. We must allow some generations for this increase of
knowledge
At the end of each of the four Nikāyas there are added portions
which are later, both in language and in psychological theory, than the
bulk of each Nikāya.
1 S. III, 13 (with a difference of reading), and S. IV, 287.
Videha, in the older Buddhist books, makes him a son of Chellanā.
Buddhaghosa has preserved what is no doubt the traditional way of
explaining away the evidence contained in the epithet? . But the matter
cannot be further discussed here.
One of the very oldest fragments preserved in the canon is a ballad
on the first meeting of Bimbisāra and Gotama. In the ballad the latter is
called 'the Buddha. ' But the meeting took place about seven years before
he became the Buddha in our modern sense ; and this unwonted use
of a now familiar title would have been impossible in any later documenta.
Gotama has only just started on his search for truth. The king, with
curious density, offers to make him a captain, and give him wealth. It
will be noticed that the king still resides in the palace of the old capital at
the Giribbaja, 'the Hill Fort'. Some years afterwards when Gotama
returns as a teacher, tbe king was lodged in the new palace that gave its
name to the new capital, Rājagaha, 'the King's House. ' The ruins of both
these places are still extant; and the stone walls of the Giribbaja are
probably the oldest identified remains in India. Dhammapāla says that the
place was originally built or planned by Mahā-Govinda, the famous
architect, to whom it was the proper thing to ascribe the laying out of
ancient cities.
On Gotama's second visit to Rājagaha Bimbisāra presented him
with the Bamboo Grove, where huts could be built for the accommodation
of the Ordert - just as he endowed also the opposite teaching”. We hear
very little about him in the books. He is not even mentioned in three out
of the four Nikāyas, and the few references in the fourth are of the most
meagre kind. But the Vinaya gives a short account of an attempt made
by Ajātasattu to kill his father with a sword", and in the closing words of
the Sāmañña-phala there is an allusion to the actual murder which he
afterwards committed? The commentary on that Suttanta gives a long
account of how it happened. The details may or may not be true ; but
the main fact that Bimbisāra was put to death by his son Ajātasattu may
be accepted as historical. The Ceylon chronologists place this event
1 Sum. I, 139. Cf. Diulogues, II, 78.
2 Sutta Nipāta, verse 408. See Dialogues, II, 2. The ballad is translated in Rh. D. ,
Early Buddhism, 31-34.
3 Vimāna-vatthu Commentary, p. 82, and above p. 154.
4 Vinaya 1, 39. 5 Ligha I, 111, 127.
Vinaya II, 190 7 Dīgha I, 86,
8 Sum. I, 133-136; Peta-v, A. 105.
6
## p. 164 (#198) ############################################
164
[сн
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE BUDDHISTS
eight years before the Buddha's death, at the time when Bimbisāra; who
had come to the throne when he was fifteen, had reigned fifty-two years. ".
On the death of Bimbisāra, his wife, the Kosala Devi, is said by
tradition to have died of grief? .
The
government revenues of an estate in
Kāsi had been settled upon her by Mahā-Kosala as pin-money on her
marriage. At her death the payment of course ceased. Ajātasattu then
invaded Kāsi. It seems incredible that this could have been the real
motive of the war, unless the kings of that place and time were less
expert in inventing pretexts for a war which they wanted than modern
kings in Europe. The war itself is however mentioned in the Canon", and
with some detail. In the first campaign Ajātasattu out-manæuvred his
aged uncle, and drove him back upon Sāvatthi. In the next, however,
Pasenadi lured his nephew into an ambush, and he was compelled to
surrender with all his force. But Pasenadi soon set him at liberty,
gave him back his army, and, according to the commentary, gave him
also one of his daughters in marriage.
In the opening paragraph of the Maha-parinibbāna Suttanta' we hear
of Ajātasattu's intention to attack the Vajjian confederacy, and, as the first
step in the attack, of his building a fortress at Pāțaliputta, the modern Patna,
on the south bank of the Ganges, the then boundary between his territory
and theirs. The minister in charge of this work was a Brāhman, known to
us only by his official title, 'the Pain-maker' (Vassakāra). He fled suddenly
to the Vajjian capital Vesāli, giving out that he had barely escaped with his
life from Ajātasattu. The Vajjians gave him refuge and hospitality. He then
dwelt among them, carefully disseminating lies and slanders until he judged
the unity of the confederation to be finally broken. Three years after his
kindly reception he gave the hint to his master, who swooped down on
Vesāli, and destroyed it, and treated his relatives very much as Vidūdabha
had treated his. We can only hope this ghastly story of dishonour, trea-
chery, and slaughter is a fairy-tale. The question can only be discussed
with profit when we have the whole of the commentary before us.
The son of Ajātasattu is mentioned in the Canon. His name was
Udāyi-bhadda, and it follows from the statements of the Ceylon Chronicles
that he succeeded his father on the throne. This is confirmed in the com-
mentaries? The name also occurs in medieval Jain and Hindu lists, inde-
pendent no doubt, both of them, of the Buddhist books.
1 Dip. III, 56. 60 ; Mhr, II, 29, 30.
2 Jät. II, 403.
3 Samyutta I, 84-86. Cf. Dhp. A. III, 259; Jāt. IV, 342.
4 Rh. D. , Dialogues of the Buddha, II, 78.
5 Digha I, 50-Dialogues, I, 68.
6 Dip. V, 97; Mhv. IV, 1.
7 Smp. 321 ; Sum. 1, 153-4.
8 V. inf. , pp. 168-69.
## p. 165 (#199) ############################################
VII)
AVANTI
165
III. AVANTI
The king of Avanti in the Buddha's time was Pajjota the Fierce, who
reigned at the capital Ujjeni. There is a legend about him which shows
that he and bis neighbour king Udena of Kosambi were believed to have
been contemporaries, connected by marriage, and engaged in war. The
boundary is not given, but a commentary mentions incidentally that the two
capitals were in round numbers fifty yojanas, about four hundred miles,
apart. We have seen that when the Nikāyas were composed Avanti was
considered to have been one of the important kingdoms of India before the
Buddha's time. Shortly after the Buddha's death Ajātasattu is said to
have been fortifying his capital, Rājagaha, in anticipation of an attack by
Pajjota of Avanti? . The king of the Sūrasenas, at Madhura, in the Buddha's
time, was called Avantiputto ; and was therefore almost certainly the son
of a princess of Avanti'. The Lalita-vistara gives the personal name of the
king of Madhura in the year of the Buddha's birth as Subāhu', and this
may be the same person.
Avanti became from the first an important centre of the new doctrine
we now call Buddhism in India it was not so called till centuries later).
Several of the most earnest and zealous adherents of the Dhamma were either
born or resided there. Abhaya Kumāra is mentioned and Isidāsiand
Isidatta8 and Dhammapāla' and Sona Kuţikaņņa10, and especially Mahā.
Kaccānall. The last of these is stated to have been called by the Buddha the
most pre-eminent of those of his disciples able to expound at length, both
as to form and meaning, that which had been said in short. The last but one,
Soņa, wās in a similar way declared to be the most eminent of the disciples
distinguished for beauty of expression. In what language were they supposed
to have exercised these literary gifts ? It was certainly not the religious
language then current in the priestly schools of Brāhmanism. This archaic
form of speech which has been preserved in the Brāhmaṇas and Upanishads
was called by the grammarians chhāndasa, 'the language of chhandas or Ved
poetry,' to distinguish it from the laukika or 'secular' language ; and the
Buddha had expressly forbidden his 'word' to be put into chhandas. Each
disciple was to speak the word in his own dialect13. It would be a
mistake, however, to be misled by the ambiguities of the word dialect,
and to suppose it to mean here the language as spoken by any peasantry.
1 Buddhist India, 4-7.
2 Above, p. 153. Cf. Jāt. IV, 390.
3 M. III, 7.
M. I), 83.
5 Ed. Rajendra Lal Mitra, p. 24. 6 Thag. A. 39.
7 Thig, A. 261-4
8 S. IV, 288 ; Thag. 120.
9 Thag. 204.
10 Vinaya Texts, II, 32 ; Thag. 369 ; Ud. V. 6.
11 Samyutta III, 9; IV, 117; Anguttara I, 23; V, 46 ; Majjhim ı III, 194, 223.
12 Cf. Dhp. A. IV, 101.
13 Vinaya II, 139. Cf. the note in Vinıyı Texts, III, 150.
## p. 166 (#200) ############################################
166
[CH.
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE BUDDHISTS
The higher ethics and philosophy of 'the Word could not be discussed in any
such dialect. Now for two or three generations before the birth of the
Buddha, the so-called Wanderers' were in the habit of passing from Avanti
to Sāvatthi, from Takkasilā to Champā, discussing in the vernacular, wher-
ever they went or stayed, precisely such questions. They had invented or
adapted abstract words and philosophical or ethical terms useful for their
purpose, equally current in all the dialects; while during the same period
there had been developed in the rising kingdoms, and especially in Kosala
(in the very centre of the regions covered by the Wanderers, and by for the
largest and most important of them all ) the higher terms necessary for legal
and administrative purposes. Just as the Christians adopted for their propa-
ganda, not classical Greek but the Greek of the Koin, the varying dialect
understood through all the coasts and islands of the Eastern Mediterranean,
which they found ready to their hands ; so the Buddha and his followers
adopted this common form of vernacular speech, varying no doubt slightly
from district to district, which they found ready to their hands. The parti-
cular form of this common speech, the then Hindustāni, in which the Pāli
Canon was composed, was almost certainly, as the present writer ventured
to suggest nearly forty years ago on historical grounds, and as Professor
Franke contends on philological grounds", the form that was current in
Avanti'. If that be so, it could be said that Buddhism, born in Nepāl, received
the garb in which we now know it in Avanti, in the far West of India. It is
t'ue that no such curt summary of a great movement can be sufficient. But
this would be nearer to the facts than that other summary, so often put
forward as convenient, that Buddhism arose in Magadha and that its
original tongue was Māgadhi,
Il'. THE VAMSAS
The King of the Vamsas in the Buddha's time is called in the Canon
Udena. His father's name was Parantapa, and his son's name Bodhi
Kumāra’. But Udena survived the Buddhas, and we are not informed
whether Bodhi did or did not succeed him on the throne. Tradition has
preserved a long story of the adventures of Udena and his three wives. We
have it in two recensions - a Pāli one, the Udena-vatthu'; and a Sanskrit one
1 See Buddhist India, 141-46.
2 Rh. D. in Trans. Phil. Soc. 1875. 3 R. Otto Franke, Pali und Sanskrit, 1902.
4 Cf. Windisch, Algiers Cong. of Orientalists, 1906; and Rh. D. , Buddhist India,
140-61.
5 For this view see the references given by Winternitz, Gesch. d. ind. Lit. II,
i, p. 10, note 3.
6 Udine VII, 10; Samyutta IV', 110-13.
i l'inaya IT, 127 ; IV, 198 ; Majjhima II, 97 ; Jātaka III, 157.
8 Petri-lutthu Commentary ] 10.
9 In Nor. nan's Drammapa la Commentary I, 161-230.
## p. 167 (#201) ############################################
VII]
THE VAMSAS
167
near
the Mākandika-avadāna'. It is quite a good story, but how far each episode
may be founded on fact is another question. The capital was Kosambi, the
site of which has been much discussed”. It seems to have been on the south
bank of the Jumna, at a point about 400 miles by road from Ujjeni, and
about 230 miles up stream from Benares. One route from Ujjeni to
Kosambi lay through Vedisa, and other places whose names are given but of
which nothing else is at present known! There were already in the time of
the Buddha four establishments or settlements of the Order in or
Kosambi, each of them a group of huts under trees. One of them was in
the ārāma or pleasaunce of Ghosita, two more in similar parks, and one in
Pāvāriya's Mango Grove'. The Buddha was often there, at one or other of
these settlements ; and discourses he held on those occasions have been
handed down in the Canon. King Udena was at first indifferent or even
unfriendly. On one occasion, in a fit of drunken jealousy he tortured a
leading member of the Order, Piņdola Bhāradvāja, by having a basket full of
brown ants tied to his body. But long afterwards, in consequence of a con-
versation he had with this same man Piņdola, he professed himself a disciple.
We have no evidence that he progressed very far along the path ; but his
fame has lasted in a curious way in Buddhist legends. For instance there is
an early list of the seven Con-natals (sahajātā), persons born on the same
day as the Buddha? . The details of the lists differ; and already in the Lalita-
vistara it has grown into several tens of thousands, still arranged however
in seven groups8. Many centuries afterwards we find the name of Udena
appearing in similar lists recurring in Tibetan and Chinese books'.
THE FIRST GREAT GAP
The passages referred to above tell us a good deal of the political
condition of India during the Buddha's life, and enable us to draw certain
conclusions as to previous conditions for some time before the birth of the
Buddha. There are also one or two passages in the Canon which must refer
to dates after the Buddha's death. Perhaps the most remarkable is the verse
in the Pārāyana (a poem now included in the Sutta Nipāta) which, referring
to a time when the Buddha was alive, calls Vesāli a Magadha city10.
Now we
know from the Mahā-parinibbana Suttanta that (at the time when that very
composite work was put together in its present shape) Vesāli and the whole
Vajjian confederacy was considered to have remained independent of
1 Divyāvadāna 515-544. (Ed. Cowell and Neil. )
2 For different views see T. Watters, On Yuan Chwang, I, 366-9 and Chapter XXI.
3 Buddhist India, p. 36.
4 Sutta Nipāta, 1011.
5 Vin. IV. 16 ; Sum. 319.
6 Jätaka IV, 375.
7 See Rh. D. , Buddhist Birth Stories, note on p. 68.
8 Lalita-vistaraed Rajendralal Mitra, p. 109.
9 Rockhill, Life, 16, 17; Watters, On Yuan Chwang, I, 368.
10 Sutta Nipäta, 1013.
## p. 168 (#202) ############################################
168
[ch.
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE BUDDHISTS
Magadba up to the end of the Buddha's life! . If therefore the reading in
our text of the Pārāyana be correct, the expression 'Magadha city' must be
taken in the sense of ‘now a Magadha city,' and as alluding to the conquest
of Vesāli as described above, p. 164. But it is apparently the only passage
in the Canon which takes cognisance of that event. Again in the Anguttara
we have a sutta' in which a king Munda, dwelling at Pāțaliputta, is so over-
whelmed with grief at the death of his wife Bhaddā that he refuses to have
the cremation carried out according to custom. But aftor a simple talk
with a thera named Nārada he recovers his self-possession. We learn from
the chronicles that King Munda was the grandson of Ajātasattu and began
to reign about the year 40 A. B. " It is a fair inference from this episode that
Pāțaliputta had already at that time become the capital of Magadha.
Nārada is said to have lived in the Kukkuțārāma, no doubt consisting of a
few huts or cottages scattered under the trees in the pleasaunce so called,
It was a well-known resting place for the Buddhist Wanderers, and Asoka
is said to have built a monastery on the site of it. '
The long poem of old Pārāpariya, a laudator temporis acti, on the
decay of religion since the death of the Master', adds nothing to political
history. So also the edifying ghost-story recorded in the Peta-vatthu (II
10) can only, at most, give us the name of a sort of public-works officer at
Kosambi shortly after the Buddha's death.
These few details are all that we can glean from the Theravāda Canon
concerning the history of India for more than a hundred and sixty years.
And the chroniclers and commentators do not add very much more. They
have preserved indeed a dynastic list of the kings of Magadha with regnal
years of most of the kings. The list is as follows:
Ajātasattu reigned 32 years
Udãyi-bhadda
Anuruddha
Munda
Nágadāsaka
24
Susunāga
Kālāsoka
His 10 sons
22
Nine Nandas
Chandagutta
24
There are other lists extant, not so complete, and not always with the
regnal years given, in Jain, Hindu, or Buddhist Sanskrit works. They have
been carefully compared and discussed by W. Geiger, in a very reasonable
1 Dialogues, II, 78-80.
2 A. III, 57-63.
3 Jahāvamsa IV, 2, 3 ; Divyāvadānı 369.
4 S. V, 171; d. V, 312 ; J. I, 350 ; Divy. 368, 434 ; T. Watters, On]Yuan
Chuang, II, 98, 99.
5 Thera-gåthā, 9. 20-48.
16
}
8
18
28
22
? ?
## p. 169 (#203) ############################################
VII]
CHANDAGUTTA
169
and scholarly way 1. He comes to the conclusion that, on the whole, the
above list is better supported than the others. This may well be the case ;
but at the same time it must be confessed that the numbers seem much too
regular, with their multiples of six and eight, to be very probably in
accordance with fact. And we are told nothing at all of any of the other
kingdoms in India, or even of the acts of the kings thus named, or of the
extent of the growing kingdom of Magadha during any of their reigns. The
list gives us only the bare bones of the skeleton of the history of one
district.
CAANDAGUTTA
When the curtain rises again we have before us a picture blurred and
indistinct in detail, but in its main features made more or less intelligible by
what has been set out above.
India, as shown in the authorities there quoted, appeared as a number
of kingdoms and republics with a constant tendency towards amalgamation.
This process had proceeded further in Kosala than elsewhere ; that great
kingdom being by far the most important state in Northern India, and very
nearly if not quite as large as modern France. It occupied the very centre
of the territories mentioned in those authorities ; it had its capital near the
borders of what is now Nepāl ; and it included all the previous states
or duchies between the Himālayas on the north and the Ganges on the west
and south. The original nucleus of this great kingdom was the territory
now the seat of the Gurkhas, and these Kosalans were almost certainly, in
the main at least, of Āryan race. For the heads of houses among them (the
gahapatis) are called rājāno, the same as the clansman (the kula-puttā) in the
free republics. Of the surrounding kingdoms Magadha, though much
smaller, was the most progressive. It had just absorbed Anga, and at the
Jast moment we saw it attacking, and with success, the powerful Vajjiap
confederation. The rise of this new star in the extreme South-East was the
most interesting factor in the older picture.
The new picture as shown in the Ceylon Chronicles and in the classi-
cal authors (especially those based on the statemerts in the Indika of Megas-
thenese) show us Magadha triumphant. All the kingdoms, duchies, and
clans have lost their independence. Even the great Kosalan dominion has
been absorbed. And for the first time in the history there is one paramount
authority from Bengal to Afghānistān, and from the Himālayas down to
the Vindbya range.
We shall probably never know how these great changes, and especially
the fall of Kosala, were brought about. And we have no information as to
the degree in which the various local authorities retained any shadow of
power. Were the taxes fixed by the central power and collected by its own
1 Mahāramsa (English, translation), Intr. pr. xl-xlvi.
## p. 170 (#204) ############################################
170
[CH.
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE BUDDHISTS
officers ? Or were the local rates maintaind and collected by a local
authority ? If the latter, were the actual sums received paid over to the
central office at Pataliputta, or was a yearly tribute fixed by the paramount
power ? On these and similar questions we are still quite in the dark. But
our two sets of authorities, which are quite independent of one another,
agree in the little they do tell us.
Unfortunately each set is open to very serious objections. The
Chronicles are quite good as chronicles go, and we have them not only com-
plete but well edited and translated. But of course we cannot expect
from documents written fifteen hundred years or more ago, any of that
historical criticism that we are only just beginning to use in the West. They
are written throughout for edification, and in the Mahāvamsa sometimes
also for amusement ; they are in verse, and are not infrequently nearer to
poetry than history; and though based on a continuous tradition, that
tradition is now lost. On the other hand, the work of Megasthenes,
written during the life-time of Chandagutta, is itself lost. What we have
are fragments preserved more or less accurately, and with the best
intentions, by later Latin and Greek authors. Where what is evidently
intended as a quotation from the same passage in Megasthenes is found in
more than one of these later authors the presentations of it do not, in
several cases, agree. This throws doubt on the correctness of those quota-
tions which, being found in one author only, cannot be so tested. A number
of the quotations contain statements that, as they stand. , are glaringly
absurd-stories of gold-digging ants, men with ears large enough to sleep in,
men without mouths, and so Strabo therefore calls Megasthenes
mendacious. But surely such stories and other things) only show that
Megasthenes was just as ignorant of the modern rules of historical
evidence as the Chroniclers were and for the same reason, Strabo's idea of .
criticism is no better than that of those who ignore the Chroniclers on the
ground that they are mendacious. As will be seen in Chapter XVI which
deals more fully with the Greek and Latin writers on Ancient India, it is
more probable that in these fairy-tales of his Megasthenes, like Herodotus
before him, had either accepted in good faith stories which were current in
the India of his day, or had merely misunderstood some Indian expression.
AGE OF THE AUTHORITIES USED
It remains now to give some account of the literature from which our
knowledge of early Buddhism is chiefly derived, and so form some
estimate of its value as source of history. This literature which deals
mainly with ethics and religion, grew up gradually among those followers of
the Buddha who dwelt in the republics and kingdoms specified above.
There are now 27 books, and only three of them deal with the rules of the
Order. But these 27 are mostly anthologies of earlier shorter passages.
on.
## p. 171 (#205) ############################################
VII ]
ANTIQUITY OF SOURCES
171
>
The Pātimokkha for instance-one of the earliest documents - has 227
suttas, and they are of the average length of about three lines; and the
Silas, a string of moral injunctions, are, if taken separately, quite short.
But neither of these tracts, each of them already a compilation, now exists
as a separate book. They are found only as imbedded in longer works of
later date. It took about a century for the more important works, the
Vinaya and the four Nikāyas', to be nearly finished about as we have
them. (See p. 173 )
The next century and a half saw the competition of the supplementary
works-the supplements to the Vinaya and the four Nikāyas; the thirteen
books of the supplementary fifth Nikāya (much of it based on older
material) ; and the seven Abhidhamıma books, mainly a new classification of
the psychological ethics the four Nikāyas.
So far the books had been divided into Dhamma and Vinaya ; that is
to say, religion and the regulations of the Order. Now, after the close of
the canon, a new division begins to appear, that into three Pițakas (or
Baskets) of Vinaya, Sutta, and Abhidhamma. We do not yet know exactly
when or why this new division arose and superseded the older one”. As late
as the fifth cent. A. D. we find Buddhaghosha still putting the Vinaya and
the Abhidhamma into the supplementary fifth Nikāya", though he and other
commentators also use the newer phrase'.
The authorities on which our account of early Buddhist history is
based are therefore the Nikāyas, with occasional use of other works
mainly of such as are included in the fifth or supplementary Nikāya.
Concerning the period to which the Nikāyas belong we have some evidence,
partly internal and partly external. To take the latter first :
Asoka in the Bhabra Edict recommends his co-religionists the special
study of seven selected passages. Two of the titles given are ambiguous.
Four of the others are from the four Nikāyas, and the remaining one from
the Sutta Nipāta now included in the fifth Nikāya. As was pointed
out a quarter of a century ago it is a critical mistake to take these titles as
the names of books extant in Asoka's time.
They are the names of
1 The titles of the five Nikāyas are as follows ; 1. Digha=the long Suttas; 2.
Majjhima=the Suttas of medium length; 3. Samyuta=Suttas forming connected
groups ; 4. Anguttara=Suttas arranged according to a progressive enumeration (from
one to eleven) of the subjects with which they deal; 5. Khuddaka=smaller works
and miscellanea,
? Perhaps the oldest reference to the three Pițakas is in Kanishka's Inscr. , Ep.
Ind. VIII, 176.
3 Attha-sālini, 26.
4 Ibid. 27; Sum. V'il. I, 15. So also Mil. 21, 90 ; Thig. A. 199; Dhp. A. III, 385.
5 Rh. D. , Questions of King Milinda, I, xxxvii ff.
## p. 172 (#206) ############################################
172
[CH.
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE BUDDHISTS
edifying passages selected from an existing literature. It is as if an old
inscription had been found asking Christians to learn and ponder over the
Beatitudes, the Prodigal Son, the exhortation to the Corinthians on
Charity, and so on.
There are
no such titles in the New Testament,
Before short passages could be spoken of by name in this familiar manner
a certain period of time must have elapsed; and we should be justified in
assuming that the literature in which the passages were found was therefore
older than the inscription'.
Further, in certain inscriptions in the Asoka characters of a
somewhat later date there are recorded names of donors to Buddhist
monuments. The names being similar, distinguishing epithets are used
--X. who knows Suttantas, X. who knows the Pitaka (or perhaps the
Pitakas, Peaki), X. who knows the five Nikāyas. These technical terms as
names fir books are, with one exception, found only is that collection we
now call the Pāli Pitakas. The exception is the word Pijaka. That is not
found in the four Nikāyas in that sense ; and even in the fifth Nikāya it is
only approximating to that sense and has not yet reached it. One
would naturally think, if these Nikāyas had been put together after these
inscriptions, that they would have used the term in the sense it then
had, and has ever since continued to have ; more especially as that sense--
the whole collection of the books-is so very convenient, and expresses an
idea for which they have no other word.
Thirdly, the commentators both in India and Ceylon say that the
Kathā-vatthu, the latest book in the three Pitakas, as we now have them,
was composed by Moggaliputta Tissa at Asoka's court at Pataliputta in
N. India at the time of the Council held there in the eighteenth year of
Asok a's reign. At the time when they made this entry, the commentators
held the Pițakas to be the word of the Buddha, and believed also that
the Dhamma had been already recited at the Council held at Rājagaha
after the death of the Buddha. It seems quite impossible, therefore, that
they could have invented this information about Tissa. They found it in
the records on which their works were, based ; and felt compelled to
hand it on. Being evidence, as it were, against themselves, it is especially
worthy of credit. And it is in accord with all that we otherwise know.
Anyone at all acquainted with the history of the gradual change in
Buddhist doctrine, and able to read the Kathāvatthu, will find that it is
just what we should expect for a book composed in Asoka's time. It has
now been edited and translated for the Pāli Text Society; and not a single
phrase or even word has been found in it referable to a later date. It
quotes largely from all five Nikāyas? .
1 See J. P. T. S. , 1896.
2 See the passages collectnd in Dialogues of the Buddha, I, pp. xi, xii.
## p. 173 (#207) ############################################
VII]
THE NIKĀYAS
173
or
The above is all the external evidence as yet discovered, and the
third point, though external as regards the Nikāyas, is internal at regards
the Pitakas. The internal evidence for the age of the Nikāyas is very
small, but it is very curious.
Firstly, the four Nikāyas quote one another. Thus Anguttara v, 46
quotes Samyutta í 126 ; but in giving the name of the work quoted it
does not say Samyutta but Kumāri-pañha—the title of the particular Sutta
quoted. The Samyutta quotes two Suttantas in the Digha by name-
the Sakka-pañha and the Brahma-Jāla'. It follows that, at the time when
the four Nikāyas were put together in their present form, Suttas and
Suttantas known by their present titles were already current, and handed
down by memory, in the community.
More than that there are, in each of the four Nikāyas, a very large
number of stock passages on ethics found in identical words in one
more of the others These accepted forms of teaching, varying in length
from half a page to a page or more, formed part of the already existing
material out of which the Nikāyas were composed. Some of the longer
Suttantas consist almost entirely of strings of such stock passages.
There are also entire episodes containing names of persons and
places and accounts of events-episodes which recur in identical terms in
two or more of the Nikāyas. About two-thirds of the Mahā-parinibbāna
Suttanta consists of such recurring episodes or stock passages? . This
will help to show the manner in which the books were built up.
Several conversations recorded in the Nikāyas relate to events which
occurred two or three years after the Buddha's death ; and one passage
(Anguttara 111 57-62) is based on an event about 40 years after it.
The four Nikāyas occupy sixteen volumes of Pāli text. They contain
a very large number of references to places, No place on the East
of India south of Kalinga, and no place on the West of India, south
of the Godāvari, is mentioned. The Asoka Edicts, dealing in a few
pages with similar matter, show a much wider knowledge of South India,
and even of Ceylon. We must allow some generations for this increase of
knowledge
At the end of each of the four Nikāyas there are added portions
which are later, both in language and in psychological theory, than the
bulk of each Nikāya.
1 S. III, 13 (with a difference of reading), and S. IV, 287.
