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The Adhidhamma, or Teaching Basket, containing chiefly manuals for the training of monks and nuns, Is the tradition credible? The following facts must be recognized. In the third century B.C., the Canon existed only in the memories of the monks and nuns; and it must have been in Magadhi, the vernacular of Magadha and of the imperial capital, Patna. No portion of this original Magadhi Canon sur- vives, but the Ceylonese Canon, from which Europian scholars obtained their knowledge of early Buddhism, purports to be the identical books accepted at the Council. The language, however, is Pali, a literary tongue which is believed to have been developed at a later date from several vernaculars, but especially from Magadhi, and which was used by Ceylonese Buddhists for the literature of their faith alone. The Pali Canon was reduced to writing in Ceylon in the first century B.c,, and in the later history it is but the Canon of the Vibhajjavadin school of Ceylon, and of others dependent on it. It is practically certain that this Pali Canons and the later Sanskrit Canons of North India were derived independently from the Magadhi original. 24 BUDDHISM IN ENGLISH As to the relation of the Pali Canon to the texts of the third century B.c., the position of advanced scholarship is probably best represented by Poussin, who, while ac- knowledging that Vinaya and Sutta Pitakas which we possess are. on the whole very much the same as the early Magadhi texts, yet holds that numerous changes were probably introduced in the time of oral transmis- sion and in the process of translation into Pali; and roundly declares that ‘the Apostolic or conciliar origin of the Abhidharma is a pious fraud.’ He points out that, while all the schools acknowledged a Canon in two parts, the Vinaya and Sutta Pitakas, only two schools, namely the Vibhajjavadins of Ceyron, who used Pali, and the Sarvastivadins, who probably belonged to Kashmir, and used Sanskrit, possessed an Abhidhamma Pitaka, and the two collections are wholly independent. Conse- quently, we can recognize only the Vinaya and the Sutta Pitakas as belonging to the early period. — J. \. Farquhar, “Outline of the Religious Literature of India” CHAPTER VII PALI CANON Certain pioneers returned last century from countries PAL] CANON 25 where creed and culture are or have been Buddhist, in their hearts the wish, on their shoulders task, to make known in the West a literature venerable in its tradition, and, where still followed, a living force in the present, but practically unknown outside Asia. This was the religious literature of Ceyron, Siam, and Burma, written on palm-leaf manuscripts, and, for the most part, in a language not at any time native to any of those countries, but hailing from the ancient dialects of North-East India, Closely akin to the language, which, as a literary diction, is known in the medieval portion of the litera- ture as fa/é (or the Text), is that of certain inscriptions carved on rock and pillar, found in different parts of India. These are known as the Edicts of the Emperor Acoka, the Indian over-lord who reigned edour 272-35 B.C, They consist largely of injunctions to righteous and fraternal conduct, and refer to passages contained in the most ancient of these same Pali compositions. These oldest compilations are treasured, in the three countries above- named, as canonical scriptures. And the Pali language is judged to be a literary version of an Indo-European dialect, later than the language of the Vedas and Brah- manas, or oldest known Brahmin texts, but earlier than what is called Sanskrit, that is, the literary language of India during nearly the whole of the Christian era. Now this Pali was the vehicle of what is, so far as we have yet been able to discover, the earliest formulated 26 BUDDHISM IN ENGLISH records of Buddhism. Dead as a vernacular, it still lives on as a literary instrument in the native colleges or monas- teries of Ceylon, Siam, and Burma, just as Latin was the medieval, and is, to some extent still, the modern vehicle for ecclesiastical Christianity. In its vernacular or spoken form, it appears to have been the language, according to Buddhist commentarial tradition, of Magadha, according to Rhys Davids, of Kosala, about the fifth century B.C. (or earlier) and subsequent centuries. It was in the kingdom of Kosala that the Buddhist move- ment took firmest root, growing up in the great college at Sdvatthi, the site of which has during the last few years been excavated. So that although the first Buddhist Emperor, Acoka, was of Magadha, south of Kosala, and established his capital at Patna on the Ganges, the Buddhist canon had already been compiled (though not yet written) more or less in its present form in Kosalese, and not in Magadhi, and so it has since then remained in the countries of Further India, after the ex- pulsion of Buddhism from its birthplace. Buddhism was a missionizing movement from the first, and Further India was won over to Buddhism by missions dispatched from its centres in North-East India. And it isin Further India, constantly loyal to its adopted religion, that the Pali books, hand-written on palm-leaves, have been preserved, freshly copied, commented upon, or otherwise ela- borated in other palm-leaf manuscripts, and have thence, in copies old or new, been sold or given to, or appropriated by PALI CANON 27 Europeans. Now while Prinsep on the one hand first deciphered the rock-cut inscriptions of the Emperor Acoka, containing historical evidence of inestimable value, Turnour, Childers and Gogerly, Oldenbergs and Rhys Davids, for over half a century, have been educating European culture in the contents of the Pali palm-leaf MSS. Prior to this, our knowledge of early Buddhism was derived from certain books of an early mediaeval date, such as that from which the late Edwin Arnold derived his famous poem, “The Light of Asia.” These books were written in the Sanskrit, which as a general literary vehicle of thought (and not as merely the language of a learned class) had gradually superseded the earlier literary vehicle of Pali. So far, no manuscripts from Northern India, or from Bud- dhist centres North and North-East of India, have yielded us anything, in diction or in subject-matter, so apparently near to the biginnings of Buddhism, as a religion and a body of culture, as some of these Pali books that Ceylon, Siam and Burma have preserved. These oldest books, together with several of a somewhat later date, claim, by their own testimony, and the ancient tradition of these southern Buddhist countries, to have been collected into a Canon or Bible of sacred documents, entitled the Three Pitakas, or Baskets of Traditim. They were, and are, held “sacred” in this sense, that they are believed to contain the genuine sayings of Gautama, the Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, as well as other books, which are 28 BUDDHISM IN ENGLISH elaborations of subjects stated by him in outline; sacred also in this, that they may not be added to, nor otherwise altered. Besides these Three Pitakas, the Pali literature contains a great body of exegetical commentary on the Pitakas, mainly as to the oldest group of it, the work of two scholars, both Indian — Buddhaghosa and Dhammapala — dating from the fifth century, A. p. a great number of sub-commentaries added gradually from that date till the present, and lastly a number of other treatises, some older and some more recent than the great commentaries. These are independent works, in that they are not sys- tematic expositions of the sacred texts. But they are, again, dependent in that they express opinions in conformity with those texts, and frequently cite them as authoritative. Now it is the editing of this palm-leaf literature in printed books, and the translating of them by the scholars I have named, aided by many others, that have been gradually, for the last half century, bringing a knowledge of early Buddhism to the educated public in Europe and America. The Pali Text Society alone, founded by Professor Rhys Davids in 1881, has published seventy volumes of texts and translations. Zhe Sacred Books of The Last, founded by the late Max Miller, published several translations. Zhe Sacred Books of the Buddhists series, the Harvard Oriental Series, the German Pak- Socdety are publishing more. — Mrs. Rhys Davids, “Buddhism? — RULES FOR BHIKKHU 29 CHAPTER VIIl RULES FOR BHIKKHU —FROM A VINAYA— Here, venerable Sirs, the thirty Pacittiya Rules invol- ving forfeiture come into recitation. 1. When the robes have been settled, when the Kat- hina has been taken up by the Bhikkhu, an extra robe may be kept up to the end of a period of ten days. To him who goes beyond that there is a Pacittiya offence involving forfeiture. 2. When the robes have been settled, after the taking up of the Kathina by the Bhikkhu, if a Bhikkhu be without his three robes, even for a single night, unless with the permission of the Bhikkhus — that is a Pacittiya offence involving forfeiture. 3. When the robes have been settled, when the Kathina has been taken up by the Bhikkhu, if a set of robes should be offered to a Bhikkhu out of season, it may be accepted by that Bhikkhu, should he so wish. But when he has accepted it, it must be made up at once; and if it be not sufficient for him, it may be kept up to the end of a month by that Bhikkhu should he have any hope that the deficiency may be supplied. If he keep it beyond that time, even if there he hope of ( the deficiency ) being 30 BUDDHISM IN ENGLISH supplied — that is a Pacittiya offence requiring forfeiture.