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We are not yet in a position to know how close was the filiation between the true Sthaviravadins and the Ceylonese school, but for the present we have given the Singhalese scholastics the benefit of the doubt (a rather serious doubt) and dub all those who follow the Pali Canon genuine Sthaviravadins. INTRODUCTION 13 (2) The second school is that of the Sarvastivadins, the learned and philosophical school of Hinayana as it developed in India proper, whose canon was probably in some Prakrit originally, but was later transformed into Sanskrit, which henceforth became its canonical language. (3) The third school is that of the Yogacarins, who were also frequently known as the Vidyamatrins, or Vijnanavadins. This differs from the preceding by being Mahayana rather than Hinayana. Consequently it had an idealistic rather than a realistic interpretation of cosmological problems. Never theless, historically, it was closely filiated with the Sarvastivadin school, and its philosophical and other works were likewise composed in Sanskrit. The schools which are not of importance for the study of Buddhist cosmology may be summed up in the following way : (1) Indian Hinayana schools other than those representing the Sthaviravadin and Sarvastivadin tradition. We are told 1 that there were eighteen principal Hinayana sects in India, though no two accounts give quite the same list of names or specific points of difference. Nevertheless, some eight or nine of these were of such considerable influence that remnants of their philosophy have come down to us. From these we may see that practically all of the Hinayana sects were concerned to a greater or less extent with cosmological matters, but that only two of them (the Sthaviravadin and Sarvastivadin) composed an Abhidharma Pitaka or wrote elaborate commentaries on philosophical matters, so that not only are these two the only schools concerning which we have exact information, but they alone seem to have been possessed of a definite and systematic cosmological philosophy as opposed to the general discussion and counter-discussion of the other sects. (2) Indian Mahayana schools other than that of the Yogacarins. Tradition 2 tells us that there were but two main 1 Cf. Points of Controversy for Pali account, Nanjio's 1284, 1285, 1286 for Chinese account, and RockhilTs Life of the Buddha for Tibetan account. 2 Cf. introduction to Takakusu's translation of I-tsing. 14 MANUAL OF BUDDHIST PHILOSOPHY philosophic systems of Mahayana in India, one the early Madhyamika school, represented by Nagarjuna and Arya Deva, and the other the Yogacarin school, represented by Asanga and Vasubandhu. For the present purpose the Madhyamika school may be completely excluded, for it had nothing whatever to add to cosmological speculation. It was absorbed in disputes concerning the nature of absolute truth and the ultimate nature of reality. From the absolute standpoint the universe was completely non-existent — why, therefore, should one bother to classify the fictitious. From the relative standpoint the Madhyamika philosophers accepted the Sarvastivadin categories without altering them in any respect. An examination of the various Mahayana Sutras and Sastras rendered into Chinese shows that there were a number of important points of view prevalent among Indian Mahayanists which found presentation in neither of the two above-mentioned schools, but these may also be neglected, first, because they were never developed in a systematic form, and secondly (and even more important), because such works are more concerned with metaphysical or ontological matters than with problems of cosmology. (3) Chinese and Japanese schools of Buddhism. For the most part, Buddhist communities founded outside of India were content to derive their fundamental philosophic con ceptions from the original Indian schools of thought, though, for this purpose, it may be necessary to count Ceylon, the home of the later Sthaviravadin movement, as part of India. Thus Burma and Siam have accepted their cosmology as well as their ontology from the Pali Abhidharma works. The Tibetan and Mongolian monks when not executing devil dances, or composing incantations and charms, study the philosophical systems of India, adding thereto very little of their own. Chinese and Japanese Buddhism, however, have developed schools of thought which are quite original and important, and any general history of Buddhist philosophy INTRODUCTION 15 must or should give considerable attention to these innovations, more particularly the development of the Indian Buddha Ksetra cult into philosophical monotheism, and of the Madhyamika nihilism into realistic pantheism ; but these developments had little reference to cosmology, and the new schools were content to accept the cosmic geography evolved by either the Sarvastivadin or Yogacarin schools.1 We have seen, then, that a study of the three schools, Sthaviravadin, Sarvastivadin, and Yogacarin, is sufficient to make us familiar with the whole field of Buddhist cosmology. In order, however, that the history of the development of cosmological ideas may be understood, it is necessary to say a word concerning the chronology and inter relation of these three schools. (1) The Sthaviravadins,2 or, at least, the school which flourishes in Ceylon, Burma, and Siam, and which lays claim to that title, occupies a curiously isolated position among the various Buddhist schools. Its Sutra and Vinaya Pitakas are essentially the same as those of the other Hinayana schools, as may be seen by comparing the Pali versions with the various Hinayana Sutra and Vinaya works contained in the Chinese Buddhist Canon, but its chief claim to philosophical distinction is its Abhidharma Pitaka, which seems to have been brought from Ceylon shortly after the conversion to Buddhism of that island by Mahinda (Mahendra), the son or nephew of Asoka, in the third century B.C. It is doubtful if the whole of the Pali Pitaka was brought over at this time, or even that the work of composition had been completed at so early a date. In any case, the transmission was oral and subject to interpolation. But the seven Abhidharma works must have existed very much in their 1 Cf. the cosmological sections of the 0 jgc jj| for T'ien-t'ai and 35. IJC SL for Hua-yen. 2 The general history of Buddhism in Ceylon is too well known to make it necessary to quote authorities ; compare, however, Geiger's translation of Mahavamsa, and the section on Ceylon (vol. iii, p. 11 ff.) in Sir Charles Eliot's new book Hinduism and Buddhism. 16 MANUAL OF BUDDHIST PHILOSOPHY present form at the beginning of the Christian era, about which time they were reduced to writing. At this period, although the Canon was kept in Pali, a number of com mentaries were written in, or translated into Singhalese, but these have now been lost. Thereafter the most important period of Pali Buddhism, during which this school was almost, though never quite, transformed from a theology into a philosophy, is represented by Buddhaghosa, about A.D. 400. He wrote a number of new commentaries (if history can be trusted), destroyed the older commentaries, and came to be considered the official interpreter of the Pali school. After the time of Buddhaghosa, though from a material point of view the Buddhist order experienced many vicissitudes, its philosophical development was very slow and gradual. As the Ceylonese type of Buddhism eventually dominated Burma and Siam, where it seems to have supplanted other forms of Buddhism, the Buddhism of Buddhaghosa is now the predominant form of Hinayana, and therefore the system of thought best known to the West. One point, however, deserves attention, and that is the complete absence of all North Indian mention of the Abhidharma books of the Pali Canon. The Pali school makes very sweeping claims for itself. It claims that Pali was the original language of the Buddha, that the seven Abhidharma works are part of his gospel, and that they were recited at the first council. It is also stated that Buddhaghosa, the great commentator, came from somewhere in North India, and was a scholar of some repute before his arrival in Ceylon. Both of these statements imply a close relationship between the Ceylonese Buddhist school and that of India. It is there fore important to point out the following facts : The only Hinayana Abhidharma Pitaka which we can prove to be known to the Buddhists of North India was that of the Sarvastivadins.