English
Kasawara left his MS. with Prof. Max Miller when he went home from England in 1881. We see, in the Journal of the Pali Text Society, 1883, p. 71, how the Professor was entertaining the hope of printing our Record. He says: I may add that I possess an English translation of I-tsing’s “ Nan-hai-chi-kuei- nai-fa-ch‘uan,” made by Kasawara during his stay at Oxford. It is not complete, and he hoped to finish it after his return to Japan, where a new edition of the Chinese text is now being published from an ancient Korean copy, collated with several Chinese editions. With the help, however, of Mr. Bunyiu Nanjio and some other scholars, I hope it will be possible before long to publish Kasawara’s trans- lation of that important work. Mr. Nanjio once-examined the MS., and noted: ‘Kasawara leaves out more than a half of the original work in his translation. But I think the portion he has translated agrees with the original pretty well.’ In reality his translation covered some seventy-two pages out of 206 in all, the obscure and uninteresting portion naturally being left out. With the exception of chapters xxxii and xxxiv, his MS, was either incomplete or an abstract only. It was his labour, however, that prepared the way for my present work, and the memory of his early death continually served to encourage me while handling his MS. or trying to make out the obscure passages of our Record. The object of I-tsing’s work was to correct the misrepresentations of the Vinaya rules, and to refute the erroneous opinions held by the schools of the Vinaya-dharas then existing in China. Atle therefore dwells chiefly on the monastic life and discipline of his time ; but mingled with this we have also several important facts recorded in our work. As to the importance of I-tsing’s contribution to the dentate “ek an.) jug mek ae | xX GENERAL INTRODUCTION. Buddhism, especially of the Schools of the Chinese Vinaya, our knowledge of which is still very-limited. The present work is an exclusive representation of: the Mfllasarvastivada School, one of the four chief Nikayas prevalent in India, and this will, I hope, lead some Chinese scholars to a study of the Vinaya, which is still almost an unbeaten track in Chinese literature. The Vinaya of this particular school is rich and by far the most complete of all, having also with it a complete commentary (Vibhasha) and several ‘helps’ to its study, almost all of which have been translated by I-tsing himself (below, p. xxxvii). We have, besides, two other Vinaya-pi/akas, which bear a close relation to the above, belonging to the Mahisdsaka and Dharmagupta Schools—two subdivisions of the Milasarvastivada, according to I-tsing (p. 20)!, All these schools are known both to the Simhalese and to the Tibetans, and the Mahtsasaka~ and Sarvstivida existed as early as Asoka’s time; both of them are said to have developed out of the Sthavira-nikaya, which is identified by Prof. Oldenberg with the Vibhagyavadf? of the historical records of Ceylon (the name being also found in Tibetan and Chinese), We have now in existence the Vinaya-pi/aka in six recensions, represented in three languages. The complete text of the Theravada is preserved in PAli (1), which in substance closely corresponds with the Mahisdsaka-vinaya in Chinese (2)*; that of the Malla- sarvastivada in Tibetan (3) as well as in Chinese (4), along with these that of the Dharmagupta—a subdivision of the last (5). Moreover, of the school furthest removed from the orthodox, we have the Mah@sahghika-vinaya (6), in a complete state; brought home by Fa-hien, a.p. 414, from Pévaliputra, and translated A.D. 416. Seeing that we have such ample materials, a careful examination of them and a scientific comparison of all the results would much help us in ascertaining the stages of development of the traditional opinions of all the schools, for the Vinaya was held by them as the most important in determining the difference of traditions handed down by various authorities, -When all these works have been examined, and the historical developments traced out, some chapters of our Record relating + But it does not necessarily follow that the subdivisions are chronologically later than the school to which they belong, for it is possible that the schools which had been originally independent may later have come under a more flourishing school and made it the chief, seeing that there are not many material differences in their doctrines. In the Dipavamsa the Sarvstivada is said to have separated itself from the Mahisasaka. ; ® Vinaya-pifakam, p. xvii. In the Chinese translation of Buddhaghosa’s Samantapas4dikd, the Vibhageavadi, under Asoka’s Council, is rendered Fén-pieh-shuo, ‘ He who adheres to the doctrine of distinction.’ Nanjio’s Catal., No. 1125; book ii, fol. g*. PRELIMINARY, REMARKS. xxi to the Disciplinary Rules, though they may seem to some to be uninteresting at present, will, I hope, turn out a valuable manual showing how they modified and practised the original rules of the Buddha in the seventh century of our era. ~ The Malasarvastivada School. ae In the course of 100-200 years after the Buddha’s Nirvana’, that is to say, after the Council of Vaisalf, the object of which was chiefly to refute the ten theses of the Vaggian Bhikshus, the Buddhist Church is said to have split into various schools. The Sarvastivada-nikdya, to which I-tsing himself beloviged, as it is one of the earliest schools, must have developed itself in the same period. In the Dfpa- vamsa V, 47, it is said that the Mahims4saka first separated itself from the Theravada, and from the Mahimsasaka, the Sabbatthivada, and Dhammagutta. The history of our school, however, begins with the Kathavatthu of Moggaliputta Tissa (B.c. 240), the head of Asoka’s Council. It does not seem to have played a very im~- portant part at that time, for Tissa’s work directs only three questions against the Sabbatthivadas:—1. Can an Arhat fall from Arahatship? (Parihayati Araha Arahatta ti); 2. Does everything exist ? (Sabbam atthiti); 3. Is continuation of thought samadhi? (Xitta-santati samadhiti)®. All these would be answered in the affirmative by the Sabbatthivadas against the opinions of the orthodox school. This materialistic school appears later on as the Yaibh4shika, which is most likely identical with that of Sayava’s Sarvadarsana-sangraha,—the Presentationalist, as Prof. Cowell (p. 15) calls it. About 300 years after the Nirvana, Katyayant- putra compiled the G#&naprasthana-sdstra*, which is the fundamental work of - the Sarvstivadas. It is on this book Vasumitra and others composed, at the time of Kanishka, an elaborate commentary called the Mahavibhashd-sdstra (No. 1263), belonging to this school, and they were consequently collectively called the Vaibhashikas. About 400 years later, in the fifth century a.p., Vasubandhu wrote the Abhidharma-kosa-sdstra (No. 1267), in which he, as an adherent of the Mahdy4na, refuted the views of the Vaibhashikas. Thereupon, his contemporary and former teacher, Sanghabhadra of the Sarvastivada-nikaya, refuted in turn the opinions expressed in the Kosa in his Nyayanusdra-sistrq {No. 1265). But it was before these two teachers that this school found a home in C. India. Fa-hien (a.p. 399-414), who went to India to collect the Vinaya 1 Dipavawsa V, 16-18; Mahavassa V, 8, 7 J. R.A.S., 1892, p. 8 f, i, 2,63 xi, 6. : * Compare Hiuen Thsang’s Mémoires, iv, 200; Wassilief, Buddhismus, pp. 217, 218; Burnouf, Introduction, 399 ; Nanjio’s Catal., No. 1275. xxii GENERAL INTRODUCTION. texts, says that this school was followed in P4/aliputra as well as in China, and that the Vinaya of it had not -as yet been -reduced to writing’, In Hiuen Thsang’s time (a.D. 629-645), this school seems to have been widely followed. He mentions some thirteen places as belonging to it; Kashgar, Udyana, and many other places on the northern frontier, Persia in the west, Matipura, Kanoj, and a place near Ragagrzha in C. India. The Tibetan Vinaya, which was translated between the seventh and thirteenth centuries®, is said to belong to this school $, though the analysis of the Dulva (=Vinaya) in reality presents a closer resem- blance to the Dasddhydya-vinaya, which is, according to I-tsing, not exactly the text of the Sarvastivadas (p. 20). J-teing in our Record gives the geographical extension of this school (p. xxiv). It flourished in C, and N. India, and had' some followers in E, and W. India, but it seems to have had very few adherents in S. India, and was entirely: absent in Ceylon. In Sumatra, Java, and the neigh- bouring islands, almost all belonged to this school, and in China all the four subdivisions of it-were flourishing. Even in Champa a trace of it was found. No other school, so far as we can ascertain, ever flourished so widely as the Sarvastivada, either before or after the. seventh century ; though its adherents in India alone, in Hiuen Thsang’s time, were not so numerous as those of the other schools *, This school no doubt belongs to the Hinay4na, though our author does not expressly say so. He mentions the two Bauddha systems, Madhyamika (of Nagarguna) and Yoga#arya (of Asanga), found in Sayama’s philosophical work, and says that only these two were the Mahayana then existing. or that ever existed. I-tsing makes an attempt to harmonise the two extreme YAnas, pointing out some facts common to both, such as the adoption of the same Vinaya and the same Prohibitions (p. 14). What constitutes the difference between the two is, according to him, the worship of a Bodhisattva and the reading of a Mahayana- sQitra, which are peculiar to the Mahayanists.