CHAPTER 1: THE ANCESTRY OF BUDDHATHERE is no continuous life of Buddha19 in the Scriptures. The isolated events found therein have in some cases been woven by the commentators, along with additional incidents, into a longer narrative. The Jataka commentator, in order to introduce the tales of Buddha's previous births, gives an account of his life down to the time when he is supposed to have begun to illustrate his preaching by these tales. The commentator of the Buddhavamsa is able to specify the various places where Buddha kept Retreat during the rainy season for the first twenty years of his ministry. The Sanskrit works also show a similar development. First there are the separate legends of the commentaries (preserved in the Tibetan) and those of the Mahavastu; and these in the Lalita-vistara and similar works have been elaborated into a regular biography.
It is impossible to draw a strict line between the legends in the Canon and those in the commentaries. Some of the latter are undoubtedly later inventions, but all of them belong to a period far removed from the stage which might be considered to be the record, or to be based on the record, of an eyewitness. Everything, even in the Scriptures, has passed through several stages of transmission, and whatever the period of the actual discourses, the legends by which they are accompanied are in no case contemporary. Some of the scriptural legends, such as the descent from heaven, and the miracles of the birth and death, are just those which show most clearly the growth of apocryphal additions, as well as the development of a dogmatic system of belief about the person and functions of Buddha. Another development is that which makes Buddha the son of a king, and the descendant of a line of ancestors going back to the first king of the present cycle. This cannot be ignored, as it occurs in both the Pali and Sanskrit Scriptures.
The only firm ground from which we can start is not history, but the fact that a legend in a definite form existed in the first and second centuries after Buddha's death. Evidently if this is to be judged from the point of view of its historical value, it must be taken as a whole, the most incredible and fantastic as well as the most seemingly veracious portions. We may reject unpalatable parts, but cannot ignore them without suppressing valuable evidence as to the character of our witnesses.
One element which is usually found unpalatable to modern thought is the miraculous; and one way of dealing with it has been simply to suppress the miraculous features.20 The presence of miracle does not of itself invalidate a legend. The story that a certain arahat attended an assembly may be true, even if we are told that he passed through the air on his way thither. To the chronicler this feature was miraculous, but at the same time quite normal for an arahat. When however we are told that Buddha paid three visits to Ceylon, we get no nearer to historical fact by suppressing the circumstance that he went through the air. The presence of miracle has in fact little to do with the question whether some historical basis underlies a legend. Normal circumstances are quite as likely to be invented as miracles. A much more important means of testing a legend is to compare the different forms in which it appears. It may have been elaborated, or an elaborate legend may have been rationalised. Additional incidents may be inserted in awkward places, or quite contradictory accounts of the same circumstance may be recorded.
It is often possible to make a clear-cut distinction in the strata of tradition in cases where a legend occurs in the Scriptures differing in character and circumstances from one or more versions of it in the commentaries, and where in the latter. contradictory details are found. All such details can be swept away as accretions, and the difference between the strata is found so frequently that we can indicate an earlier stage of tradition when the elaborate stories did not exist. It is not an argument from silence to infer from the canonical accounts of the Enlightenment that when they were compiled nothing was known of the words supposed to have been uttered by Buddha on that occasion. If one version of these words had been preserved, it might represent an old tradition outside the scriptural account. But we find at least six conflicting versions, two of them in the Pali. All of them are more or less intelligent guesses, made by searching tee Scriptures to find out which among Buddha's utterances must have been the first, not an old tradition concerning what those words actually were.21
Another important distinction lies in the fantastic character of the legends of Buddha's life before his enlightenment as compared with those afterwards, when he was residing in a district where the legends began to be collected. It is not till Buddha has left his home and comes to the Magadha country that we find the slightest reference to any historical or geographical fact independent of his personal life. The period of his youth in a distant country, before he won fame and honour as a teacher, would be largely, if not wholly, a blank, and would be all the more easily and eagerly filled up by the imaginations of his disciples.
But if the legends of this period are to be judged, and some estimate of their character as historical evidence is to be made, they must be considered in the form in which they have come down to us, and not after judicious expurgation. They throw light on the character of the canonical accounts, and also illustrate the Buddhist theories of cosmogony and other dogmatic beliefs. It is in fact necessary to start with the beginning of the world, for to this point is traced back the ancestry of Buddha.
In Brahminical thought, as far back as the Vedic period, there is no creation of the world in the Jewish sense. It is periodically evolving and dissolving into its elements, and its originator and preserver as it starts on a new cycle (kalpa) of development is the god Prajapati, or Brahma, with whom he comes to be identified, and as he is known to the Buddhists. This theory of recurring cycles was also Buddhistic, but the view that Brahma was the originator of a new cycle is directly ridiculed in the Buddhist Scriptures. That Brahma. exists the Buddhist did not deny. Brahma in a discourse attributed to Buddha is even made to declare that he is "the subduer, the unsubdued, the beholder of all, the subjecter, god,22 who makes, who forms, the chief appointer, the controller, the father of those that have been and shall be". But this is merely an illusion of Brahma. Really, says the Buddhist, he is as much bound in the 'chain of existence as any other being. He is the first to wake at the beginning of a new cycle, and thinks he is the first of beings. He wishes to have other beings, and when they appear in their turn, thinks he has produced them.23 This is part of the argument directed against those who undertake to explain the origin of the universe and of the soul. Whether they are eternal or not is a question not to be asked by one intent on the goal taught by Buddha.
This teaching, even if it does not go back to Buddha himself is a doctrine found in the Pali Canon. But in the same documents we also find an account of the genesis of the universe. The Patika-sutta24 is a legend, in which a foolish student is dissatisfied because Buddha will not work a miracle or declare the beginning of things. After his departure Buddha declares that he does know, and explains how the universe evolves at a new cycle, expressly rejecting the view that it is the work of a god or Brahma. This is repeated in the Agganna-sutta, and continues with an account of the further development of the first beings. These were at first purely spiritual, but gradually became more and more materialised, until passions and evil practices arose. Thereupon the people assembled, and chose the fairest and ablest, that he might be wroth, reprove, and banish. He became Mahasammata, the first king, and originator of the kshatriya caste. The other three original castes were differentiated subsequently. In this version of the origin of the castes we have another direct contradiction of Hindu theory,25 but a direct imitation of popular Hindu methods, as we find them in puranic literature. Two of the express purposes of a Purana are to explain the origin of the universe and to give the genealogies of royal families.
In the commentaries and the chronicles the descent of the kings is continued down to Buddha, and the whole legend is also found in the Mahavastu and the Tibetan Vinaya.26 The genealogy is that of the Kosala kings, and some of the names are identical with the Kosala genealogies of the Puranas, such as the famous Dasaratha and Rama, and Ikshvaku. There can be no doubt that the Buddhists, not content with simply putting aside unprofitable questions, evolved a theory of the origin of the world in direct opposition to their brahminical rivals. The rivalry appears also in other details, as when the brahmin 'teacher' of the Vedas (ajjhayaka, Skt. adhyapaka) is explained in an uncomplimentary way, and is given the meaning' he who does not meditate' (a-jjhayaka); and although the Sakyas belong to' the race of the Sun, this is said to mean, not that they trace their descent from this primitive ancestor, as in the Puranas, but that two of their predecessors were born from eggs, which were formed from coagulated blood and semen of their father Gautama, and hatched by the sun.27 From one of the eggs came the famous Ikshvaku, who in the Puranas is the immediate son of Manu, son of the Sun. But the Buddhists place between Ikshviku and their primeval king Mahasammata an enormous genealogy, and make Ikshviku merely the ancestor of the later Kosalas and of the Sakya branch of the solar race. The name however in Pali is Okkaka, and it cannot by any device be treated as a form of the name Ikshvaku. But the Buddhist Sanskrit accounts give this puranic name, where the Pali has Okkaka. The Pali is evidently more primitive, as the name of one of Okkaka's sons is Okkamukha (torch-face), a derivative of Okkaka. The form Ikshvaku adopted in the Sanskrit looks like a deliberate accommodation to the name in the puranic story.
In the legend of Ambattha in the Digha the origin of the Sakyas themselves is given. Ambattha, an accomplished young student28 under the brahmin teacher Pokkharasadi, complains to Buddha of the rudeness of the Sakyas to him in their assembly. Buddha tells him of their origin and pure descent from king Okkika, and of Ambattha's own descent from the same king and a slave girl:
But, Ambattha, if you remember your name and clan on your mother's and father's side, the Sakyas are nobly born, and you are the son of a slave-girl of the Sakyas. Now the Sakyas hold king Okkaka to be their ancestor. Long ago king Okkaka, whose queen was dear and pleasing to him, wished to transfer the kingdom to her son, and banished the elder princes [by another wife] Okkamukha, Karakanda, Hatthinika, and Sinipura29 from the kingdom. After their banishment they lived on the slopes of the Himalayas by the banks of a lotus-pool, where there was a great saka-grove. They being apprehensive of their difference30 of caste consorted with their sisters. King Okkaka inquired of the ministers in his retinue where the princes now dwelt. "There is, O king, on the slopes of the Himalayas, by the banks of a lotus-pool, a great saka-grove. Here they now dwell. Being apprehensive of their difference of caste they consort with their sisters." So king Okkaka uttered this fervent utterance: " Able (sakya) truly are the princes. Supremely able truly are the princes."31 Henceforth they were known as Sakyas, and Okkaka was the ancestor of the Sakya race.
This is only part of the complete legend, which is given in full in the Mahavastu, in the Tibetan Vinaya, and in several places in the Pali commentaries. The following is from Buddhaghosa's commentary on the above passage:
This is the story in order.32 Among the kings of the first age, it is said, king Mahasammata had a son named Roja. The son of Roja was Vararoja, of Vararoja Kalyana, of Kalyapa Varakalyana, of Varakalyalyana Mandhata, of Mandhata Varamandhata, of Varamandhata Uposatha, of Uposatha Cara, of Cara Upacara, of Upacara Makhadeva. In the succession of Makhadeva33 there were 84,000 kshatriyas. After these were the three lineages of Okkaka. Of these Okkaka of the third lineage had five queens, Bhatta, Citta, Jantu, Jalini, and Visakha. Each of the five had five hundred female attendants. The eldest had four sons, Okkamukha, Karakanda, Hatthinika, and Sinipura, and five daughters, Piya, Suppiya, Ananda, Vijita, and Vijitasena. After giving birth to nine children she died. Now the king married another young and beautiful king's daughter, and made her his chief queen. She gave birth to a son named Jantu. On the fifth day she adorned him and showed him to the king. The king was delighted, and offered her a boon. She took counsel with her relatives and besought the kingdom for her son. The king reviled her and said, "Perish, base woman, you want to destroy my sons." But she coaxed the king again and again in private, and begged, saying, "O king, falsehood is not fitting," and so on. So the king addressed his sons, "My sons, on seeing the youngest of you, prince Jantu, I gave his mother a boon. She wishes to transfer the kingdom to her son. Do you, taking whatever elephants, horses, and chariots you want, except the state elephant, horse, and chariot, go away, and after my decease come back and rule the kingdom." So he sent them away with eight ministers.
They made lamentations and wept, "Father, pardon our fault," and saying farewell to the king and the royal women they took leave of the king, saying, "We are going with our brothers," and set off with their sisters from the city attended with a fourfold army. Many people thinking that the princes after their father's decease would return and rule the kingdom, decided to go and attend on them, and followed them. On the first day the army marched one league, on the second day two leagues, and on the third three. The brothers took counsel, and said, "This force is great. If we were to crush some neighbouring king and take his land, it would not suffice for us. Why should we oppress others? Jambudipa is great, let us build a city in the forest." So going towards the Himalayas they sought a place for a city.
At that time our Bodhisatta had been born in a noble brahmin's family. He was known as the brahmin Kapila, and leaving the world he became a sage, and having built a hut of leaves dwelt on the slopes of the Himalayas on the banks of a lotus pool in a saka-grove. Now he knew the science of earthquakes, by which he could perceive defects for eighty cubits above in the air and below in the earth. When lions and tigers and such animals pursued the deer and boars,34 and cats went after the frogs and mice, they were not able to follow them on .arriving at that place, but were even menaced by them and turned back. Knowing that this was the best place on the earth he built his hut of leaves there.
On seeing the princes in their search for a place for a city coming to his district, he inquired about the matter, and finding out he showed them compassion, and said, "A city built on the place of this leaf-hut will become the chief city of Jambudipa. Here a single man among those born there will be able to overcome a hundred or even a thousand men. Build the city here, and make the king's palace on the place of the leafhut; for by putting it on this site even the son of a Candala would surpass a universal king in power." "Does not the site belong to you, reverend sir?" "Do not think of it being my site. Make a leafhut for me on a slope, and build a city and call it Kapilavatthu." They did so, and resided there.
Then the ministers thought, " these youths are grown up. If they were with their father, he would make marriage alliances, but now it is our task." So they took counsel with the princes, who said, "we find no daughters of kshatriyas who are like ourselves (in birth), nor kshatriya princes like our sisters, and through union with those of unlike birth the sons who are born will be impure either on the mother's or the father's side. Let us then consort with our sisters." Through apprehension of difference of caste they set the eldest sister in place of mother, and consorted with the rest. As they increased with sons and daughters, their eldest sister became later afflicted with leprosy, and her limbs were like the kovilara flower. The princes thinking that this disease would come upon anyone who should sit, stand, or eat with her, took her one day in a chariot as though going to sport in the park, and entering the forest dug a lotus pool with a house in the earth. There they placed her, and providing her with different kinds of food covered it with mud and came away. At that time the king of Benares named Rama had leprosy, and being loathed by his ladies and dancing-girls in his agitation gave the kingdom to his eldest Bon, entered the forest, and there living on woodland leaves and fruits soon became healthy and of a golden colour. As he wandered here and there he saw a great hollow tree, and clearing a place within it to the size of sixteen cubits he fitted a door and window, fastened ,a ladder to it, and lived there. With a fire in a charcoal vessel he used to lie at night listening to the sounds of animals and birds. Noticing that in such and such a place a lion made a noise, in such a place a tiger, he would go there when it became light, and taking the remains of meat cook and eat it.
One day as he was seated after lighting a fire at dawn, a tiger came attracted by the scent of the king's daughter, and stirring the mud about the place made a hole in the covering. On seeing the tiger through the hole she was terrified and uttered a cry. He heard the sound, noticed that it was a woman's voice, and went early to the place. "Who is there?" he said. "A woman, sir." "Of what caste are you?" "I am the daughter of king Okkaka, sir." "Come out." "I cannot, sir." "Why?" " I have a skin disease."
After asking about the whole matter, and finding she would not come out owing to her kshatriya pride, he made known to her that he was a kshatriya, gave her a ladder, and drew her out. He took her to his dwelling, showed her the medicinal food that he had himself eaten, and in no long time made her healthy and of a golden colour, and consorted with her. The first time she gave birth to two sons, and again to two, and so on for sixteen times. Thus there were thirty-two brothers. They gradually grew up, and their father taught them all the arts.
Now one day a certain inhabitant of the city of King Rama, who was seeking for jewels on the mountain, saw the king and recognized him. "I know your majesty," he said. Then the king asked him all the news. Just at that moment the boys came. On seeing them he asked who they were, and being told that they were Rama's sons he inquired about their mother's family. "Now I have a story to tell," he thought, and went to the city and informed the king. The king decided to bring back his father, went there with a fourfold army, and saluting him asked him to accept the kingdom. "Enough, my son," he replied, " remove this tree for me here and build a city."
He did so, and owing to removing the kola-tree for the city and through doing it on the tiger-path (vyagghapatha), he caused the origin of the two names of the city, Kolanagara35 and Vyagghapajja, and saluting his father went to his own city. When the princes had grown up, their mother said to them, "children, the Bakyas who dwell in Kapilavatthu are your maternal uncles. Your uncles' daughters have the same style of hair and dress as you. When they come to the bathing-place, go there, and let each take the one that pleases him. They went there, and when the girls had bathed and were drying their hair, they each took one and making known their names came away. The Sakya rajas on hearing of it thought, "let it be, to be sure they are our kinsfolk," and kept silence. This is the origin of the Sakyas and Koliyas, and thus the family of the Sakyas and Koliyas making intermarriages caine down unbroken to the time of Buddha.
We learn from the Mahavastu that Ikshvaku was king of the Kosalas, and this is what we should expect. The city from which the princes were banished was Saketa, i.e. Ayodhya. This is rather a late feature, as Savatthi was the earlier capital, and is regularly referred to as such in the Suttas. By the term 'late' we may mean anything within a thousand years of Buddha's death; and within this period we cannot deny the possibility of additions to the Pali as well as to other forms of the Canon. However early we may put the date of a canonical collection, we can certainly deny that such legends formed an original part of it. To the commentator, to whom the legend was evidently true, it was quite natural to assume that the omniscient Buddha knew it, and hence told it.
The descent of kings from the first Sakyas is continued in the Mahavastu, the Tibetan, and the Pali Chronicles; but the differences between each are so great that its interest is chiefly to show that there is no agreement upon one version of the genealogy. The lists in the Chronicles are the most evidently artificial, as several kings who appear in the Jatakas, and who are hence previous incarnations of Buddha, have been inserted.
But there is a special interest in the question of the origin of the legend of the Sakyas. It was pointed out by Fausboll36 that the story has correspondences with the Ramayana story, and one version of this story is found in the Jatakas. This is the Dasaratha-jataka (No. 461). King Dasaratha of Benares has three children, Rama, Lakkhana, and a daughter Sita. The queen dies, and his next queen obtains for her son Bharata the boon that he shall succeed to the kingdom. The king fearing her jealousy banishes Lakkhana and Rama, and Sita chooses to accompany them. They go to the Himalaya for twelve years, as. the soothsayers tell the king that he has so long to live. But at the end of nine years he dies of grief, and Bharata goes to fetch his brothers back. Rama refuses to return until the end of the prescribed twelve years, and for the remaining three years his sandals rule the kingdom, after which he returns as king, and makes Sita his queen.
This shows certain differences in details from the Ramayana epic. The exiles go to the Himalaya (a common feature in the Jatakas), not to the Deccan. There is no rape of Sita, who is here not the daughter of the king of Videha, but the sister of Rama, and the king in the epic dies soon after Rama's departure. But the names of all the persons mentioned are identical, and the general course of events is the same as those of the Ayodhya-kanda down to and including the installing of the sandals in Rama's absence. Benares replaces Saketa or Ayodhya, and this may be due to the mechanical way in which the king of Benares in the Jatakas is introduced again and again. The form in which we have the Dasaratha-jataka belongs to the fifth century A.D., and is a retranslation into Pali from a Singhalese version. There is no doubt that the epic is older than this, but there is no need to suppose direct derivation in either direction. The legend itself probably existed before the epic, and would still continue to exist in a popular form, independent of the additions or inventions introduced by Valmiki. The verses of the Jataka, unlike those of some of the tales, do not appear to be very old. One is in the Ramayana itself, and five are in the Sammaparibbajaniya-sutta of the Sutta-nipata (578, 576, 583, 585, 591), and they have every appearance of being drawn from the sutta, and not vice versa. The special moral of the Jataka, on the duty of not grieving for the dead, is also a feature of the Ramayana (II, ch. 105).
The importance to us of the Rama story is its resemblance to the Sakya legend. The chief motive is the same: elder sons are banished owing to the jealousy of a favourite wife, who obtains the kingdom for her own son. That the resemblance was also recognised by the Pali commentators is shown by the fact that some of the phraseology in each tale is identical. There is further the unusual feature that as the four banished brothers marry their sisters, so in the Jataka Rama marries his sister Sita. One story has been modelled on the other, and we cannot doubt that the Rama story is the model. The other alternative would be to suppose both the Dasaratha-jataka and the Ramayana to be based on the Sakya legend. It was a favourite theory of Benfey that Buddhism was a great source for Indian legends, but the whole evidence of the Jataka is against it.37 Nonbuddhistic and even antibuddhistic tales have been swept into the collection, and adapted or used without any Buddhistic colouring for the teaching of ethical commonplaces.
Both the Buddhist account of the origin of things and the genealogy and legends of the Sakyas show the influence of Hindu, especially puranic, tradition. The contradictions between the various versions as well as the borrowing of names and pedigrees exclude any probability that we have a basis of history in the Sakya genealogy. The basis is the historical fact of the existence of the Sakyas and Koliyas, on which an imaginative structure of legend has been built. This legend, if not in all its details, has been incorporated in what is usually considered to be the most ancient evidence. It is in fact the most ancient, except in so far as we can succeed in separating strata of evidence in the Canon itself. A preliminary separation can be made, as has been pointed out,38 without any reliance on subjective criteria, by excluding the numerous passages attributed by the texts themselves to authors other than Buddha, and also by separating the legendary parts, which are often recorded as commentary without being treated as Buddha's utterance. A subjective element is introduced as soon as we seek to construct a probable history out of the legends, and it has usually been done in a quite arbitrary manner. The foregoing legends are ignored, and the history begins with the contemporaries of Buddha, the Sakyas and his immediate relatives among them. Further, one form alone of the legend of Buddha's family is taken, or as much of it as appears plausible, and the others are quietly dismissed. It is this portion of the legend which has now to be examined.
NOTE ON THE GEOGRAPHY OF EARLY BUDDHISMThe home of Buddhism lies in what is now South Behar, west of Bengal and south of the Ganges. This was the country of the Magadhas with the capital at Rajagaha (Rajgir). East of these were the Angas, whose chief city was Campa. North of the Magadhas and on the other side of the Ganges were tribes of Vajjis (chief town Vesali), and still farther north the Mallas. West of the Magadhas were the Kasis, whose chief city was Benares on the Ganges. The kingdom of the Kosalas (capital Savatthi or Sravasti) extended north of the Kasis as far as the Himalayas, and on the northern borders were settled the Sakyas and their neighbours on the east the Koliyas. All these are tribal names, and it is misleading to use the terms Anga, Magadha, etc., as if they were names of countries. In the sixth century B.C. the Magadhas and Kosalas had developed out of tribal organisations into two rival kingdoms, the Kasis being absorbed by the Kosalas, and the Angas by the Magadhas. These are all the peoples that have any claim to be connected with the scenes of events in Buddha's life. Our earliest evidence is in the Digha and Majjhima, in which the introductory or legendary passages of the discourses state where Buddha was staying when the discourses were given. The places mentioned cannot be taken as actual evidence contemporary with Buddha. They form rather part of the stock tradition of the two schools of repeaters. But that the tradition is very old is indicated by what is omitted. There is in these collections no indication of places where Buddha actually stayed beyond the countries of the Kasis, Kosalas, Angas, Magadhas, Kurus, Vajjis and Mallas. Even Benares, which occurs over and over again in the commentaries, is rarely mentioned in the Canon.
In several places of the Scriptures a regular list of places is mentioned, and we can see from the variations and the widening geographical range, how it has been gradually extended. Even the shortest form of the list probably represents a later period of greater geographical knowledge than is shown in the stock list of names of localities where discourses were given. It occurs in the Janavasabha-sutta,39 a legend in which Buddha tells the fate of disciples who have died in various countries, and in addition to those mentioned above are given the Cetis and YaIp.sas (Yatsas) west of Prayaga (Allahabad), the Kuru- Pancalas, north-west of the Kosalas, and still further west the Macchas and Surasenas. This list of twelve is further extended in the Anguttara 40 by the addition of four more, the Assakas of South India, the Avantis north of the Vindhyas, and in the extreme north the Gandharas and Kambojas. These are the so-called sixteen powers, and this list of sixteen has been supposed to be very old, perhaps even pre-Buddhistic; but it is much more likely to be due to gradual accretion, especially as the last four names, which are quite absent from the oldest collections, are mentioned frequently in the commentaries and later documents. In the still later Niddesa the list is found with further variations. The Sagaras and the Kalingas of southeastern India are introduced, and the Yonas (Greeks or Persians) are substituted for the Gandharas. The Siamese edition of the Niddesa reduces the number to eleven. In any case only the first six names concern us, as the others never occur as the scenes of any events, and are indeed far distant from the region of the earliest Buddhism. Bengal (Vanga) is nowhere mentioned in the four Nikayas, nor is Ceylon.41
There is no real knowledge of any part of the Deccan. The Assakas of the list of sixteen are said to have been settled on the Godavari, and a single reference to this river is found in the introductory verses to the Parayana section of the Suttanipata (977). The Parayana is indeed old, but it is introduced by a legend expressly called vatthugatha, "verses of the story." There is no reason for thinking that this legend in its present form is of the same age as the Parayana. It is in quite a different style, and like the prose introductions of other discourses of the Suttanipata it explains the occasion of the poems that follow, but most of it is in verse. It is probable that an earlier prose version preceded the verse, as the story still has two endings, the first in prose, and the second in verse, which gives the same matter and uses some of the same phraseology as the prose. It is evident that even though the legend may be old, the same cannot be said of the details that may have been introduced when it was recast. The legend describes a journey which is a circuitous route from the Godavari past Ujjeni, and includes most of the places famous in Buddhist legend, Kosambi, Saketa, Savatthi, Setavya, Kapilavatthu, Kusinara, Pava, Bhoganagara, Vesali, and the city of the Magadhas (Rajagaha). The course of the journey may well represent an actual route established when these places had become the objects of pilgrimage.
There is also a list of cities, which belongs to the same stratum of legend as the list of countries. In the account of Buddha's death Ananda is made to say that the Lord ought not to pass away in a small town like Kusinara: there are great cities like Campa, Rajagaha, Savatthi, Saketa, Kosambi, and Benares.42 Campa of the Angas was near the modern Bhagalpur. Rajagaha is also called Giribbaja. This was the hill-town of old Rajagaha, surrounded by five hills. The new town is said to have been built by Bimbisara. The capital of the Magadhas was afterwards Pataliputta.43 Buddha before his passing away is recorded to have prophesied that the town which Ajatasattu was then building on the Ganges at Pataligama to ward off the Vajjis, would become a chief city Pataliputta. The tradition of the rise of the city implied in the prophecy is evidently all the more trustworthy as history, if it is taken to represent not a prophecy, but the actual knowledge of the compiler at a time when the city was in fact the capital.
Savatthi was the capital of the Kosalas, and its site is discussed below. In the Ramayana the capital is Ayodhya (Pali Ayojjha, modern Oudh or Ajodhya, near Faizabad), and in later works it is identified with Saketa. There can be little doubt that Saketa is the Ayodhya of the Sanskrit books. The difference of name may be due to saketa being the name of the district, in the same way as Benares gets the name Kasi; or Ayodhya, which means 'the unconquerable', may have been a new name given by some victorious king. The probability is that with the extension of the Kosala power to the south Saketa or Ayodhya took the place of Savatthi as the capital. The Ramayana tradition would thus represent a later stage historically than the Buddhistic. Ayojjha is mentioned twice in the Canon (Samy. iii 140, iv 179), and in both places is said to be on the Ganges. But as it was certainly not on this river, this can only be an unintelligent tradition, especially as in one of these passages Kosambi is read for Ayojjha in one MS. Kosambi was the capital of the Vamsas or Vatsas, and was identified by Cunningham with the two villages of Kosam on the Jumna, some ninety miles west of Allahabad. Evidently no weight can be attached to the Samyutta passage which puts it on the Ganges. V. A. Smith held that it was further south, in one of the states of Baghelkhand.44
Vesali (Vaisali), is generally agreed to be the ruins at Basar in the Muzaffarpur District of North Behar.45 Takkasila, known to the Greeks as Taxila, was the capital of the Gandharas. It is frequently mentioned in the commentaries, especially as a place of education. This was no doubt the fact at the time when Buddhism had spread to the North West. But it is never mentioned in the Suttas, and there is no reason to think that it was known in earlier times.
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Notes:19 Buddha, 'the enlightened,' is properly his title only after his enlightenment. Before then he is a Bodhisatta (Skt. Bodhisattva), 'a being of (or destined for) enlightenment: As Buddha he is represented &8being mentioned or addressed by disciples as Bhagava (Bhagavat), 'Lord,' a term common to various Hindu sects as the title of their founder or their special deity. The graceful phrase' the Blessed One', sometimes used to represent this word, is in no way a translation. Tathigata is the title used when he speaks of himself. Etymologically it means 'he who has gone (or come) thus', but the exact sense is disputed. Sakyamuni, 'the sage of the Sakyas: is a common title found in Sanskrit works. Nonbuddhists are made to refer to him by his clan-name Gotama., or as mahasamana, 'the great ascetic: His personal name, Siddhattha or Sarvarthasiddha, is discussed below.
20 E.g. Canon Liddon's life of Buddha in Essays and Addresses, London, 1892, carefully ignores every miraculous feature, though he draws it from one of the latest and most fantastic versions of the story. Cf. also the article Buddha in EB.
21 See Ch. VI.
22 God or Lord, issara (Skt. isvara). It is this word and the question of a god in this sense, as ruler and controller of the universe, that forms the bone of contention between the theistic and atheistic schools of Indian philosophy; cf. Dasgupta, Yoga as philosophy and religion, p. 164.
23 Brahmajala-sutta. Digha, i 18 ff.
24 Digha, iii 1 ff.
25 On the Vedic theory of 'creation' by Prajapati see Rig-veda X 121, and on the origin of the four castes X 90; translated in Vedic Hymns by E. J. Thomas, 1923. That the brahmin theory of caste is deliberately rejected is shown by the Madhura-sutta, where the orthodox view that the brahmin was born from the mouth of Brahma is referred to. Majjh. ii 84; transl. in JRAS. 1894, p. 341 ff.
26 Mvastu, i 338 ff.; Rockhill, ch. i; the genealogies are given in Dpvm. iii, Mhvm. a The story of the origin of things and portions of the genealogies are in the Digha put into the mouth of Buddha. There is no reason to ascribe this to pious fraud. The legends arose and were preserved by memory as anonymous productions. As the doctrine was held that Buddha was omniscient, he must on the Buddhist view have known all these things, and in fact only he could have known them truly. Hence in the codifications of the Scriptures it was quite natural that these records should have been attributed to him.
27 Rockhill, p. 11.
28 Called a young Brahman, Dial., i 109, but he was not of the pure brahmin caste. His name is hill caste name, and the Ambatthas (Ambashthas). as the story shows, were a mixed caste. According to the Law-book of Manu, x 13, they were due, not, as here, to a kshatriya and a slave (presumably sudra), but to a brahmin father and a vaisya mother. The origin of caste is a pre-buddhistic question, and so is the theory that there were four original castes, from which the others are held to have been derived by intermixture. That the modem caste rules and the castes themselves, with .their constant tendency to subdivision, are now very different from those of the Buddhist books or even of the Mahabharata and Manu, requires no proving. But the strictness of caste rules is shown from the legend itself, as the brahmins and kshatriyas could expel a member by shaving his head and pouring ashes on it, refusing him a seat and water and a share in sacrifices and burial rites. Digha, i 98. It needs to be noticed that the views in the Buddhist books concerning caste are the views held at the time of the compilers. What were the actual social rules prevailing in the lifetime of Buddha and in his own tribe is much more problematical.
29 Several of these names are corrupt. The Mahtivastu, i 348, makes six of them, which the editor reduces to five, but four are required by the legend, as will be lean below.
30 Mvastu, i 351, probably more correctly, reads jatisamdosabhayena, 'through fear of corrupting their caste.'
31 There is a pun here, as sakya also means 'belonging to the saka-tree '. This derivation, as Dr. Hoey has shown, may be correct. They would be 'the people of the sal-forest tracts '. The saka is the sal-tree, Shorea robusta, not the teak, Tectona grandis, which is not indigenous in the Nepal Terai forests. JRAS., 1906, p. 453.
32 This is the phrase regularly used by the commentator when he is repeating an earlier account.
33 This king with more of the genealogy occurs in Majjh. ii 74.
34 Reading sukare with the Colombo edition, not sukara.
35 In the Mahavastu version the exiled king's name is given as Kola, and from this the name of the Koliyas is explained. Mvastu, i 353.
36 Indische Studien. v 412 ff. (1862). Fausboll there gives the story of the Sakyas from the commentary on Sn. II 13, now published in the PTS. edition, vol. ii 356 ff.
37 See Jataka Tales, Introd. p. 2 ff.
38 See Introduction and Appendix, p. 250.
39 Digha, ii 200 ff.
40 The list of sixteen has been stated to occur several times, but it is merely the same passage repeated (Ang. i 213; iv 252, 256, 260). The sixteen countries are referred to in Lal. 24 (22), where only eight places are named, and Mvastu, i 198; ii 2, where no names are given.
41 Hence the absurdity of calling the doctrine found in Pali writings "southern Buddhism".
42 Digha, ii 146, 169.
43 Known to the Greeks as Palibothra, the modern Patna.
44 JRAS. 1898, 503 ff.
