Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

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Mahavagga, Khandaka 6, Chapter 28, Excerpt from Vinaya (2): The Mahavagga
by T.W. Rhys Davids
1881

Mahavagga, Khandaka 6, Chapter 28

On Medicaments
[1] [Chaps. 28-30 are, with a few unimportant variations, word for word the same as Mahāparinibbāna Sutta I, 19-II, 3; II, 16-24. See Rh. D.'s Introduction to his translation of the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta, pp. xxxiv seq., and his note there at II, 16.]

[From this sentence down to the end of the verses at Chap. II, § 3, is, with a few unimportant variations, word for word the same as Mahâ Vagga VI, 28, 1, to VI, 29, 2.]

-- Buddhist Suttas, Vol. XI of The Sacred Books of the East, Translated from Pâli by T. W. Rhys Davids


1. And the Blessed One, after having dwelt at Rājagaha as long as he thought fit, went forth to Pāṭaligāma, accompanied by a great number of Bhikkhus, by twelve hundred and fifty Bhikkhus. Wandering from place to place the Blessed One came to Pāṭaligāma. Now the lay-devotees at Pāṭaligāma heard: 'The Blessed One has arrived at Pāṭaligāma.' And the Pāṭaligāma lay-devotees went to the place where the Blessed One was; having approached him and respectfully saluted the Blessed One, they sat down near him. When they were seated near him, the Blessed One taught, incited, animated, and gladdened the Pāṭaligāma lay-devotees by religious discourse.

2. And the Pāṭaligāma lay-devotees, having been taught, incited, animated, and gladdened by the Blessed One by religious discourse, said to the Blessed One: 'Might the Blessed One, Lord, consent to come to our rest house together with the fraternity of Bhikkhus.' The Blessed One expressed his consent by remaining silent. Then the Pāṭaligāma lay-devotees, when they understood that the Blessed One had accepted their invitation, rose from their seats, respectfully saluted the Blessed One, and passing round him with their right side towards him, went away to the rest house. When they had arrived there, they strewed the whole floor of the rest house[2] [Perhaps we are to supply 'with sand.' Comp. Dīpavaṃsa VI, 64; XII, 71, &c.], placed seats in it, set up a water-pot, and fixed an oil lamp. Then they went to the place where the Blessed One was; having approached him and respectfully saluted the Blessed One, they stationed themselves near him.

3. Standing near him the Pāṭaliputta lay-devotees said to the Blessed One: 'We have strewn the whole floor of the rest house, Lord, (with sand), we have placed seats in it, set up a water-pot, and fixed an oil lamp. May the Blessed One, Lord, do now what he thinks fit.'

And in the forenoon the Blessed One, having put on his under-robes, took his alms-bowl, and, with his cīvara on, went to the rest house together with the Bhikkhus who followed him. When he had arrived there, he washed his feet, entered the rest house, and took . his seat against the centre pillar, with his face towards the east. And the Bhikkhus also washed their feet, entered the rest house, and took their seats against the western wall, with their faces towards the east, having the Blessed One before their eyes. And the Pāṭaligāma lay-devotees also washed their feet, entered the rest house, and took their seats against the eastern wall, with their faces towards the west, having the Blessed One before their eyes.

4. Then the Blessed One thus addressed the Pāṭaligāma lay-devotees: 'Fivefold, O householders, is the loss of the wrong-doer through his want of rectitude. And which is this fivefold loss? In the first place, O householders, the wrong-doer, devoid of rectitude, falls into great poverty through sloth; this is the first loss of the wrong-doer through his want of rectitude. And again, O householders, of the wrong-doer, devoid of rectitude, evil repute gets noised abroad; this is the second &c. And again, O householders, whatever society the wrong-doer, devoid of rectitude, enters—whether of noblemen, Brāhmaṇas, heads of houses, or Samaṇas—he enters shyly and confused; this is the third &c. And again, O householders, the wrong-doer, devoid of rectitude, is full of anxiety when he dies; this is the fourth &c. And again, O householders, the wrong-doer, devoid of rectitude, on the dissolution of his body, after death, is reborn into some state of distress and punishment, a state of woe, and hell; this is the fifth &c. This is the fivefold loss, O householders, of the wrong-doer through his want of rectitude.

5. 'Fivefold, O householders, is the gain of the well-doer through his practice of rectitude. And which is this fivefold gain? In the first place, O householders, the well-doer, strong in rectitude, acquires great wealth through his industry; this is the first gain of the well-doer through his practice of rectitude. And again, O householders, of the well-doer, strong in rectitude, good reports are spread abroad; this is the second &c. And again, O householders, whatever society the well-doer, strong in rectitude, enters—whether of noblemen, Brāhmaṇas, heads of houses, or Samaṇas—he enters confident and self-possessed; this is the third &c. And again, O householders, the well-doer, strong in rectitude, dies without anxiety; this is the fourth &c. And again, O householders, the well-doer, strong in rectitude, on the dissolution of his body, after death, is reborn into some happy state in heaven; this is the fifth &c. This is the fivefold gain, O householders, of the well-doer through his practice of rectitude.'

6. When the Blessed One had thus taught, incited, animated, and gladdened the Pāṭaligāma lay-devotees far into the night with religious discourse, he dismissed them, saying, 'The night is far spent, O householders. May you do now what you think fit.' The Pāṭaligāma lay-devotees accepted the Blessed One's word by saying, 'Yes, Lord,' rose from their seats, respectfully saluted the Blessed One, and passing round him with their right side towards him, went away.

7. And the Blessed One, not long after the Pāṭaligāma lay-devotees had departed thence, went to an empty place[3] [Suññāgāra. Comp. I, 78, 5; Suttavibhaṅga, Pārāj. IV, 4, 1.] (in order to give himself to meditation).

At that time Sunīdha and Vassakāra, two ministers of Magadha, were building a (fortified) town at Pāṭaligāma in order to repel the Vajjis. And the Blessed One, rising up early in the morning, at dawn's time, saw with his divine and clear vision, surpassing that of ordinary men, great numbers of fairies who haunted the ground there at Pāṭaligāma. Now, wherever ground is occupied by powerful fairies, they bend the hearts of powerful kings and ministers to build dwelling-places there. Wherever ground is occupied by fairies of middling power, &c.; of inferior power, they bend the hearts of middling kings and ministers, &c., of inferior kings and ministers to build dwelling-places there.

8. And the Blessed One said to the venerable Ānanda: 'Who are they, Ānanda, who are building a town at Pāṭaligāma?'

'Sunīdha and Vassakāra, Lord, the two ministers of Magadha, are building a town at Pāṭaligāma in order to repel the Vajjis.'

'As if they had consulted, Ānanda, with the Tāvatiṃsa gods, so (at the right place), Ānanda, the Magadha ministers Sunīdha and Vassakāra build this town at Pāṭaligāma in order to repel the Vajjis. When I had risen up early in the morning, Ānanda, at dawn's time, I saw with my divine and clear vision (&c., as in § 7, down to:) they bend the hearts of inferior kings and ministers to build dwelling-places there. As far, Ānanda, as Aryan people dwell, as far as merchants travel, this will become the chief town, the city of Pāṭaliputta. But danger of destruction, Ānanda, will hang over Pāṭaliputta in three ways, by fire, or by water, or by internal discords[4] [The event prophesied here, Pāṭaliputta's becoming the capital of the Magadha empire, is placed by the various authorities under different kings. Hwen Thsang and the Burmese writer quoted by Bishop Bigandet ('Legend of the Burmese Buddha,' third edition, vol. ii, p. 183) say that it was Kālāsoka who removed the seat of the empire to Pāṭaliputta. The Gains, on the other hand, state that it was Udāyi, the son of Ajātasattu. Most probably the latter tradition is the correct one, as even king Muṇḍa is mentioned in the Aṅguttara Nikāya as having resided at Pāṭaliputta. Comp. Rh. D.'s 'Buddhist Suttas,' Introd. pp. xv seq.; H. O.'s Introduction to the Mahāvagga, p. xxxvii; and the remarks of Professor Jacobi and of H. O. in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morg. Gesellschaft, vol. xxxiv, pp. 185, 751, 752, note 2.] .'


9. And the Magadha ministers Sunīdha and Vassakāra went to the place where the Blessed One was.; having approached him, they exchanged greeting with the Blessed One; having exchanged with him greeting and complaisant words, they stationed themselves near him; then standing near him the Magadha ministers Sunīdha and Vassakāra said to the Blessed One: 'Might the reverend Gotama consent to take his meal with us to-day together with the fraternity of Bhikkhus.'

The Blessed One expressed his consent by remaining silent. Then the Magadha ministers Sunīdha and Vassakāra, when they understood that the Blessed One had accepted their invitation, went away.

10. And the Magadha. ministers Sunīdha and Vassakāra ordered excellent food, both hard and soft, to be prepared, and had meal-time announced (&c.[5] [See chap. 23. 5, &c. Instead of 'Lord,' read here, 'Reverend Gotama.'], down to:) on seats laid out for them. And the Magadha ministers Sunīdha and Vassakāra with their own hands served and offered excellent food, both hard and soft, to the fraternity of Bhikkhus with the Buddha at its head; and when the Blessed One had finished his meal and cleansed his bowl and his hands, they sat down near him. When they were sitting near him, the Blessed One gladdened the Magadha ministers Sunīdha and Vassakāra by these stanzas:

11. 'Wheresoe’er the prudent man shall take up his abode, let him support there good and upright men of self-control.

'Let him make offerings to all such deities as may be there. Revered, they will revere him; honoured, they honour him again;

'Are gracious to him as a mother to the son of her womb. And a man who has the grace of the gods, good fortune he beholds.'

And the Blessed One, having gladdened the Magadha ministers Sunīdha and Vassakāra by these stanzas, rose from his seat and went away.

12. And the Magadha ministers Sunīdha and Vassakāra followed the Blessed One from behind, saying, The gate the Samaṇa Gotama goes out by to-day shall be called Gotama's gate, and the ferry at which he crosses the river Ganges shall be called Gotama's ferry.' And the gate the Blessed One went out by was called Gotama's gate. And the Blessed One went on to the river. At that time the river Ganges was brimful and overflowing[6] [Samatitthikā. This word is replaced by samatīrthikā at Lal. Vist. pp. 501, 528. Compare, however, Rh. D.'s note on Tevijja Sutta I, 24 ('Buddhist Suttas,' p. 178).]; and wishing to cross to the opposite bank, some began to seek for boats, some for rafts of wood, while some made rafts of basket-work.

13. And the Blessed One saw those people who wished to cross to the opposite bank, some seeking for boats, some for rafts of wood, and some making rafts of basket-work. When he saw them, he vanished as quickly as a strong man might stretch his bent arm out, or draw back his outstretched arm, from this side of the river Ganges, and stood on the further bank with the company of the Bhikkhus.

And the Blessed One, perceiving all this, on this occasion, pronounced this solemn utterance:

'They who cross the ocean's floods making a solid path across the pools—

'Whilst the vain world ties its basket rafts: these are the wise, these are the saved indeed.'
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

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Asiatick Researches: or, Transactions of the Society; Instituted in Bengal, For Inquiring Into The History and Antiquities, the Arts, Sciences, and Literature, of Asia
Volume IV
1795

Now the age of Vicramaditya is given; and if we can fix on an Indian prince contemporary with Seleucus, we shall have three given points in the line of time between Rama, or the first Indian colony, and Chandrabija, the last Hindu monarch who reigned in Bahar; so that only eight hundred or a thousand years will remain almost wholly dark; and they must have been employed in raising empires or states, in framing laws, improving languages and arts, and in observing the apparent motions of the celestial bodies. A Sanscrit [Sanskrit] history of the celebrated Vicramaditya was inspected at Benares by a Pandit, who would not have deceived me, and could not himself have been deceived; but the owner of the book is dead, and his family dispersed; nor have my friends in that city been able, with all their exertions, to procure a copy of it. ...

I cannot help mentioning a discovery which accident threw in my way, though my proofs must be reserved for an essay which I have destined for the fourth volume of your Transactions.
To fix the situation of that Palibothra (for there may have been several of the name) which was visited and described by Megasthenes, had always appeared a very difficult problem, for though it could not have been Prayaga, where no ancient metropolis ever stood, nor Canyacubja, which has no epithet at all resembling the word used by the Greeks; nor Gaur, otherwise called Lacshmanavati, which all know to be a town comparatively modern, yet we could not confidently decide that it was Pataliputra, though names and most circumstances nearly correspond, because that renowned capital extended from the confluence of the Sone and the Ganges to the site of Patna, while Palibothra stood at the junction of the Ganges and Erannoboas, which the accurate M. D'Anville had pronounced to be the Yamuna; but this only difficulty was removed, when I found in a classical Sanscrit book, near 2000 years old, that Hiranyabahu, or golden armed, which the Greeks changed into Erannoboas, or the river with a lovely murmur, was in fact another name for the Sona itself; though Megasthenes, from ignorance or inattention, has named them separately. This discovery led to another of greater moment, for Chandragupta, who, from a military adventurer, became like Sandracottus the sovereign of Upper Hindustan, actually fixed the seat of his empire at Pataliputra, where he received ambassadors from foreign princes; and was no other than that very Sandracottus who concluded a treaty with Seleucus Nicator; so that we have solved another problem, to which we before alluded, and may in round numbers consider the twelve and three hundredth years before Christ, as two certain epochs between Rama, who conquered Silan a few centuries after the flood, and Vicramaditya, who died at Ujjayini fifty-seven years before the beginning of our era.

Since these discussions would lead us too far, I proceed to the History of Nature...

But I should be led beyond the limits assigned to me on this occasion, if I were to expatiate farther on the historical division of the knowledge comprised in the literature of Asia; and I must postpone till next year my remarks on Asiatic Philosophy, and on those arts which depend on imagination; promising you with confidence, that in the course of the present year, your inquiries into the civil and natural history of this eastern world will be greatly promoted by the learned labours of many among our associates and correspondents.
 

-- Discourse X. Delivered February 28, 1793, P. 192, Excerpt from "Discourses Delivered Before the Asiatic Society: And Miscellaneous Papers, on The Religion, Poetry, Literature, Etc. of the Nations of India", by Sir William Jones


ADVERTISEMENT.

The unfortunate Death of Sir William Jones, on the 27th April 1794, having deprived the Society of their Founder and President, a meeting of the Members was convened on the 1st May following, when it was unanimously agreed to appoint a Committee, consisting of Sir Robert Chambers, Mr. Justice Hyde, Colonel John Murray, John Bristow and Thomas Graham, Esqrs. to wait on Sir John Shore, and in the name of the Society, request his acceptance of the office of their President. With this request, he, in terms highly flattering to the Society, agreed to comply, and on the 22d May 1794, took his seat as President, and delivered the Discourse Number XII of this Volume.

EDMUND MORRIS, Secretary

***

I. The Tenth Anniversary Discourse, Delivered 28 February 1793 by The President on Asiatick History, Civil and Natural

Before our entrance into the Disquisition promised at the close of my Ninth Annual Discourse, on the particular Advantages which may be derived from our concurrent Researches in Asia, it seems necessary to fix with precision the sense in which we mean to speak of advantage or utility.....

-- Asiatick Researches: or, Transactions of the Society; Instituted in Bengal, For Inquiring Into The History and Antiquities, the Arts, Sciences, and Literature, of Asia, Volume IV, 1795


It is at this period, about 300—302 B.C., that we first get a trustworthy account of the city. This is from the pen of the Greek ambassador, and it is unique in supplying the first fixed date for ancient India by the contemporary references through Greek history. In this first authentic glimpse into ancient India, it is remarkable that the influence of the Greeks should be so manifest at its capital.

The then reigning king, Chandra-gupta, or 'Sandrakottos,'as the Greeks called him,1 [The identity of the 'Sandrakottos' of the Greeks with Chandra-gupta was first shown by Sir W. Jones, Asiatick Researches, IV, 11 (1795); and Wilford noticed (As. Res., V, 262) that the form used by Athenaeus was even closer, namely, 'Sandrakoptus.' The 'Androkottos' of Plutarch is also this same person.] had, it seems, early come into intimate contact with the Greeks and into immediate relations with Alexander-the-Great in the Panjab, during the latter's invasion of Northern India in 326 B.C.

According to the historians of the Macedonian,2 [As noted in Plutarch's Life of Alexander under name of 'Androcottus,' also next note.] "this prince was of humble origin, but was called to royalty by the power of the gods; for having offended Alexander by his impertinent language he was ordered to be put to death and escaped only by flight and ... and collecting bands of robbers he roused the Indians to renew the empire. In the wars which he waged with the captains of Alexander he was distinguished in the van mounted or an elephant of great size and strength. Having thus acquired power Sandrakottos reigned at the same time that Seleukos laid the foundation of his dominion."3 [Justin, XV, 4.] And Buddhist tradition places the original home of his family, the Mora or Mayura (known to the Brahmans as 'Maurya') on the slopes of the Himalayas in Northern India;1 [Mahavamso [Mahavamsa], Turnour, Introd. XXXIX. Two of the rail-bars of the Bharhut stupa dating almost to Asoka's epoch are inscribed as the gifts of Thupadasa and "Ghatila's mother," both of 'Mora' hill.] whilst another legend associates the Mayura raja and a stupa-building prince of the Sakya race with the country over the Mora pass in the Swat Valley,2 [Hiuen Tsiang's Records (Beal) 1, 126.] whence I secured for the Indian Museum many Buddhist sculptures,3 [Actes du Onzieme Congres Internat. des Orientalistes, Paris, 1897, Sect. I, p. 245. See also Asiatic Quarterly Review (October 1895).] nearly all of which curiously bear the 'Mora' symbol (a peacock); and certainly in this region, as these sculptures show, Greek influence was predominant two or three centuries later. In keeping also with this alleged northern origin of Chandra-gupta are the Brahmanical accounts, which refer to him as an outsider who with the aid of 'armed bands of robbers' and associated with the Yavanas (or Westerns) overran and conquered India.4 [See footnote, p. 6.]

The Greek account of him and of the military despotism which he established thus pithily describes his relations with Seleukos Nikator, the immediate successor of Alexander:—

"Seleukos Nikator first seizing Babylon, then reducing Baktriane, his power being increased by the first success: thereafter he passed into India, which since Alexander's death killed its governors, thinking thereby to shake off from its neck the yoke of slavery. Sandrakottos (i.e., Chandra-gupta) had made it free, but when victory was gained, he changed the name of freedom to that of bondage, for he himself oppressed with servitude the very people which he had rescued from foreign dominion. Sandrakottos having thus gained the crown held India at the time when Seleukos was laying the foundations of his future greatness. Seleukos ... waged war on Sandrakottos5 [Justinus, XV, 4. This must hare been in 313 B.C., as Seleukos returned to Babylon in 312 B.C., thus giving Chandra-gupta's accession as about 315 or 316 B.C., which is the first fixed date for Indian history. Cf, also Dr. Hoernle's note in Centenary Rept. As. Socy. (Beng.), 87.] ... "until he made friends and entered into relations of marriage with him,"6 [Appianus (Syriake, c. 55).] and "receiving in return five hundred elephants"1 [Strabo, Grog. XV, 724, Bohn's trans.] "and settling affairs on this side of India directed his march against Antigonus."2 [Justin XV, 4.]


Seleukos sent his personal friend Megasthenes as ambassador to Chandra-gupta's court at Pataliputra. That historian describes the city3 [Megasthenis Indica, a critical collection of translations from the Greek and Latin fragments of Megasthenes' lost work by Schwanbeck, Bonn, 1846, and partly translated into English by J. W. McCrindle in his Ancient India, 1877 and 1893. Megasthenes died 291 B.C.] as being about 9 miles in length. It was surrounded by a wooden wall, pierced by many towered gateways, and with numerous openings in front for the discharge of arrows, and in front a ditch for defence and as a city sewer. It had a population of about 400,000, and the retinue of the king numbered many thousands. It is remarkable that in describing in considerable detail the religion of the people he makes no reference to Buddhism,4 [The 'Sarmania' clad in the bark of trees were clearly Brahmanist Sramana ascetics as Lassen recognised by Indisch. Alt., ii, 700.] although Buddha had died about a century before; and the Sanskritic way in which he spells the proper names, especially in the retention of the letter r, seems to show that the Pali form of dialect was not in use, and presumably was later in origin, although it is customary to represent Buddha as speaking always in this dialect.

This intercourse with the Greeks appears to have been closely maintained, for it is recorded that the son of Sandrakottos, "Amitrochates (? Amitroghata),5 [Strabo gives this name as Allitrochades — it was probably meant for the Sanskrit title Amitra-ghata or 'Enemy-slayer.' Cf. Wilford As, Res., v, 286.] and 'Sophaga-senas'6 [If this be intended for Subhaga-sena, it also would be an official title and not a personal name. — Lassen, Ind. Alt., ii, 273.] reinforced the armies of Antiochos, the son of Seleukos, and of Antigonus-the-Great with elephants" in their wars with the Persians. The Greek account relates that this king of Pataliputra, Amitrochates, wrote to Antiochos asking the latter to buy and send him sweet wine, dried figs and a sophist; and that Antiochos replied: "We shall send you the figs and the wine, but in Greece the laws forbid a sophist to be sold."7 [Athenaios, XIV, 67.— Ancient India, ed. 1893, p. 409.]  

The pomp and chivalry, the intrigues at court and the battles fought around the strong fortifications of Pataliputra in these early days are vividly pictured in an Indian drama, which, although only composed about the middle ages, seems to have been based on earlier books now lost.1 [The Mudra Rakshasa, translated by Dr. H. H. Wilson, of the Indian Medical Service, in his Hindu Theatre.]

It was, however, at the splendid capital of the celebrated warrior-prince, Asoka (about B.C. 250), the grandson of Chandra-gupta, that it is most widely known. This greatest of Indian emperors, the Constantine of Buddhism, may almost be said to have made Buddhism a religion, that is to say, a real religion of the people. For previous to his day it seems to have been little more than a struggling order of mendicant monks, so few apparently in number about 300 B.C. that, as we have seen, the Greek historian does not even refer to them. When, however, Asoka was converted to this faith in his later life he made it the state-religion, and of a more objective and less abstract character, so that it appealed to the people in general, and he actively propagated it by missionaries and otherwise even beyond his own dominions. He was one of the most lavish devotees the world has ever seen. He covered his mighty kingdom, from Afghanistan to Mysore, from Nepal to Gujerat, with stately Buddhist monuments and buildings of vast size, regardless of expense. With his truly imperial and artistic instincts, so clearly derived more or less directly from the Greeks and Assyrians, his monuments were of the stateliest kind. His stupendous stupas or mounds of solid masonry to enshrine Buddha's relics or to mark some sacred spot are found all over India, and are almost like Egyptian pyramids in size. His colossal edict-pillars, single shafts of stone, thirty to forty feet in length and beautifully polished and sculptured, still excite the wonder and admiration of all who see them. How magnificent, then, must have been the capital of this great Indian monarch, who, as we learn from some of his stonecut edicts in the remoter parts of his empire, was the ally of the Greek kings Antiochus II of Syria, Ptolemy of Egypt, Antigonos Gonatus of Macedon, Magas of Cyrene, and Alexander of Epirus, and how important for historical purposes are likely to be his edicts and other inscriptions in his own capital, which were seen there in the early part of our era, and are now in all probability buried in the ruins of the old metropolis.

The buildings previous to his epoch, as well as the walls of the city, seem all to have been of wood, like most of the palaces, temples and stockades of Burma and Japan in the present day. The change which he effected to hewn stone1 [See Appendix I.] was so sudden and impressive and the stones which he used were so colossal that he came latterly to be associated in popular tales with the giants or genii (yaksha)2 [The Asoka-avadana, Burnouf's Introd a l'Hist. du Buddhisme Indien, 373.] by whose superhuman agency it was alleged he had reared his monuments; and a fabulous romantic origin was invented for his marvellous capital.3 [Appendix II.]

It was possibly owing to Asoka's gigantic stone buildings that the Greeks ascribed the building of the city to Hercules, for they had several accounts of it subsequent to the time of Megasthenes.4 [Diodorus, writing in the 1st Century B.C., bases part of his account on the narrative of Jambulus, who after being seven years in Ceylon was wrecked "upon the Sandy shallows of India and forthwith carried away to the King, then at the city of 'Polybothia' many days' journey from the sea, where he was kindly received by the King who has a great love for the Grecians. * * * This Jambulus committed all these adventures to writing." — Sic. Hist. I, II, c. 4.] It is also possible that this legend of the giants may have partly arisen through Asoka having made use of sculptured figures of the giants to adorn his buildings. The two colossal statues of these 'builders' of his monuments, now in the Indian Museum, were unearthed in his capital, and bear their names inscribed in characters only a little later than his epoch.5 [Appendix III.] The stone out of which they are carved is identical with that of his pillars, and they exhibit the same high polish which is found on few Indian sculptures of a subsequent era.

-- Report on the Excavations At Pataliputra (Patna): The Palibothra of the Greeks, by L.A. Waddell, M.B., LL.D., Lieut.-Colonel, Indian Medical Service


ADVERTISEMENT.

The unfortunate Death of Sir William Jones, on the 27th April 1794, having deprived the Society of their Founder and President, a meeting of the Members was convened on the 1st May following, when it was unanimously agreed to appoint a Committee, consisting of Sir Robert Chambers, Mr. Justice Hyde, Colonel John Murray, John Bristow and Thomas Graham, Esqrs. to wait on Sir John Shore, and in the name of the Society, request his acceptance of the office of their President. With this request, he, in terms highly flattering to the Society, agreed to comply, and on the 22d May 1794, took his seat as President, and delivered the Discourse Number XII of this Volume. EDMUND MORRIS, Secretary

***

I. The Tenth Anniversary Discourse, Delivered 28 February 1793 by The President on Asiatick History, Civil and Natural

Before our entrance into the Disquisition promised at the close of my Ninth Annual Discourse, on the particular Advantages which may be derived from our concurrent Researches in Asia, it seems necessary to fix with precision the sense in which we mean to speak of advantage or utility. Now, as we have described the five Asiatic regions on their largest scale, and have expanded our conceptions in proportion to the magnitude of that wide field, we should use those words which comprehend the fruit of all our inquiries, in their most extensive acceptation; including not only the solid conveniences and comforts of social life, but its elegances and innocent pleasures, and even the gratification of a natural and laudable curiosity; for, though labour be clearly the lot of man in this world, yet, in the midst of his most active exertions, he cannot but feel the substantial benefit of every liberal amusement which may lull his passions to rest, and afford him a sort of repose, without the pain of total inaction, and the real usefulness of every pursuit which may enlarge and diversity his ideas, without interfering with the principal objects of his civil station or economical duties; nor should we wholly exclude even the trivial and worldly sense of utility, which too many consider as merely synonymous with lucre, but should reckon among useful objects those practical, and by no means illiberal arts, which may eventually conduce both to national and to private emolument. With a view then to advantages thus explained, let us examine every point in the whole circle of arts and sciences, according to the received order of their dependence on the faculties of the mind, their mutual connexion, and the different subjects with which they are conversant:...

"The ambiguous expression reliqua Seleuco Nicatori peragrata sunt, translated above as 'the other journeys made, for Seleukos Nikator,' according to Schwanbeck's opinion, contain a dative 'of advantage,' and therefore can bear no other meaning. The reference is to the journeys of Megasthenes, Deimachos, and Patrokles, whom Seleukos had sent to explore the more remote regions of Asia. Nor is the statement of Plinius in a passage before this more distinct. ('India,') he says, 'was thrown open not only by the arms of Alexander the Great, and the kings who were his successors, of whom Seleucus and Antiochus even travelled to the Hyrcanian and Caspian seas, Patrocles being commander of their fleet, but all the Greek writers who stayed behind with the Indian kings (for instance, Megasthenes, and Dionysius, sent by Philadelphus for that purpose) have given accounts of the military force of each nation.' Schwanbeck thinks that the words circumsectis etiam ... Seleuco et Antiocho et Patrocle are properly meant to convey nothing but additional confirmation, and also an explanation how India was opened up by the arms of the kings who succeeded Alexander."

-- Ancient India as Described by Megasthenes and Arrian; Being a Translation of the Fragments of the Indika of Megasthenes Collected by Dr. Schwanbeck, and of the First Part of the Indika of Arrian, by J.W. McCrindle, M.A., Principal of the Government College, Patna, Member of the General Council of the University of Edinburgh, Fellow of the University of Calcutta, With Introduction, Notes and Map of Ancient India


... our inquiries indeed, of which Nature and Man are the primary objects, must of course be chiefly historical; but since we propose to investigate the actions of the several Asiatic nations, together with their respective progress in science and art, we may arrange our investigations under the same three heads to which our European analysis have ingeniously reduced all the branches of human knowledge: and my present Address to the Society shall be confined to History, civil and natural, or the observation and remembrance of mere facts, independently of ratiocinatios, which belongs to philosophy; or of imitations and substitutions, which are the province of art.

Were a superior created intelligence to delineate a map of general knowledge (exclusively of that sublime and stupendous theology, which himself could only hope humbly to know by an infinite approximation) he would probably begin by tracing with Newton the system of the universe, in which he would assign the true place to our little globe; and having enumerated its various inhabitants, contents, and productions, would proceed to man in his natural station among animals, exhibiting a detail of all the knowledge attained or attainable by the human race; and thus observing perhaps the same order in which he had before described other beings in other inhabited worlds; but though Bacon seems to have had a similar reason for placing the History of Nature before that of Man, or the whole before one of its parts, yet, consistently with our chief object already mentioned, we may properly begin with the Civil History of the Five Asiatic Nations, which necessarily comprises their geography, or a description of the places where they have acted, and their astronomy, which may enable us to fix with some accuracy the time of their actions: we shall thence be led to the history of such other animals, of such minerals, and of such vegetables, as they may be supposed to have found in their several migrations and settlements, and shall end with the uses to which they have applied, or may apply, the rich assemblage of natural substances.

I. In the first place, we cannot surely deem it an inconsiderable advantage that all our historical researches have confirmed the Mosaic accounts of the primitive world; and our testimony on that subject ought to have the greater weight, because, if the result of our observations had been totally different, we should nevertheless have published them, not indeed with equal pleasure, but with equal confidence; for truth is mighty, and, whatever be its consequences, must always prevail; but, independently of our interest in corroborating the multiplied evidences of revealed religion, we could scarce gratify our minds with a more useful and rational entertainment than the contemplation of those wonderful revolutions in kingdoms and states which have happened within little more than four thousand years; revolutions, almost as fully demonstrative of an all-ruling Providence, as the structure of the universe, and the final causes which are discernible in its whole extent, and even in its minutest parts. Figure to your imaginations a moving picture of that eventful period, or rather, a succession of crowded scenes rapidly changed. Three families migrate in different courses from one region, and, in about four centuries, establish very distant governments and various modes of society: Egyptians, Indians, Goths, Phenicians, Celts, Greeks, Latians, Chinese, Peruvians, Mexicans, all sprung from the same immediate stem , appear to start nearly at one time, and occupy at length those countries, to which they have given, or from which they have derived their names. In twelve or thirteen hundred years more, the Greeks overrun the land of their forefathers, invade India, conquer Egypt, and aim at universal dominion; but the Romans appropriate to themselves the whole empire of Greece, and carry their arms into Britain, of which they speak with haughty contempt. The Goths, in the fulness of time, break to pieces the unwieldy Colossus of Roman power, and seize on the whole of Britain, except its wild mountains; but even those wilds become subject to other invaders, of the same Gothic lineage. During all those transactions, the Arabs possess both coasts of the Red Sea, subdue the old seat of their first progenitors, and extend their conquests, on one side through Africa, into Europe itself; on another, beyond the borders of India, part of which they annex to their flourishing empire. In the same interval the Tartars, widely diffused over the rest of the globe, swarm in the north-east, whence they rush to complete the redaction of Constantine's beautiful domains, to subjugate China, to raise in these Indian realms a dynasty splendid and powerful, and to ravage, like the two other families, the devoted regions of Iran. By this time the Mexicans and Peruvians with many races of adventurers variously intermixed, have peopled the continent and isles of America, which the Spaniards, having restored their old government in Europe, discover, and in part overcome: but a colony from Britain, of which Cicero ignorantly declared that it contained nothing valuable, obtain the possession, and finally the sovereign dominion, of extensive American districts; whilst other British subjects acquire a subordinate empire in the finest provinces of India, which the victorious troops of Alexander were unwilling to attack. This outline of human transactions, as far as it includes the limits of Asia, we can only hope to fill up, to strengthen, and to colour, by the help of Asiatic literature; for in history, as in law, we must not follow streams when we may investigate fountains, nor admit any secondary proof where primary evidence is attainable: I should nevertheless make a bad return for your indulgent attention, were I to repeat a dry list of all the Musselman historians whose works are preserved in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish, or expatiate on the histories and medals of China and Japan, which may in time be accessible to Members of our Society, and from which alone we can expect information concerning the ancient state of the Tartars; but on the history of India, which we naturally consider as the centre of our inquiries, it may not be superfluous to present you with a few particular observations.

Our knowledge of Civil Asiatic History (I always except that of the Hebrews) exhibits a short evening twilight in the venerable introduction to the first book of Moses, followed by a gloomy night, in which different watches are faintly discernible, and at length we see a dawn succeeded by a sunrise more or less early, according to the diversity of regions. That no Hindu nation but the Cashmirians, have left us regular histories in their ancient language, we must ever lament; but from the Sanscrit literature, which our country has the honour of having unveiled, we may still collect some rays of historical truth, though time and a series of revolutions have obscured that light which we might reasonably have expected from so diligent and ingenious a people. The numerous Puranas and Itihasas, or poems mythological and heroic, are completely in our powers and from them we may recover some disfigured but valuable pictures of ancient manners and governments; while the popular tales of the Hindus, in prose and in verse, contain fragments of history; and even in their dramas we may find as many real characters and events as a future age might find in our own plays, if all histories of England were, like those of India, to be irrecoverably lost. For example: A most beautiful poem by Somadeva, comprising a very long chain of instinctive and agreeable stories, begins with the famed revolution at Pataliputra, by the murder of king Nanda with his eight sons, and the usurpation of Chandragupta; and the same revolution is the subject of a tragedy in Sanscrit, entitled, the Coronation of Chandra, the abbreviated name of that able and adventurous usurper. From these once concealed, but now accessible, compositions, we are enabled to exhibit a more accurate sketch of old Indian history than the world has yet seen, especially with the aid of well attested observations on the places of the colures. It is now clearly proved, that the first Purana contains an account of the deluge; between which and the Mohammedan conquests the history of genuine Hindu government must of course be comprehended: but we know from an arrangement of the seasons in the astronomical work of Parasara, that the war of the Pandavas could not have happened earlier than the close of the twelfth century before Christ; and Seleucus most therefore have reigned about nine centuries after that war. Now the age of Vicramaditya is given; and if we can fix on an Indian prince contemporary with Seleucus, we shall have three given points in the line of time between Rama, or the first Indian colony, and Chandrabija, the last Hindu monarch who reigned in Bahar; so that only eight hundred or a thousand years will remain almost wholly dark; and they must have been employed in raising empires or states, in framing laws, improving languages and arts, and in observing the apparent motions of the celestial bodies. A Sanscrit history of the celebrated Vicramaditya was inspected at Benares by a Pandit, who would not have deceived me, and could not himself have been deceived; but the owner of the book is dead, and his family dispersed; nor have my friends in that city been able, with all their exertions, to procure a copy of it. As to the Mogul conquests, with which modern Indian history begins, we have ample accounts of them in Persian, from Ali of Yezd, and the translations of Turkish books composed even by some of the conquerors, to Ghulam Husain, whom many of us personally know, and whose impartiality deserves the highest applause, though his unrewarded merit will give no encouragement to other contemporary historians, who, to use his own phrase in a letter to myself, may, like him, consider plain truth as the beauty of historical composition. From all these materials, and from these alone, a perfect history of India (if a mere compilation however elegant, could deserve such a title) might be collected by any studious man who had a competent knowledge of Sanscrit, Persian, and Arabic; but even in the work of a writer so qualified, we could only give absolute credence to the general outline; for, while the abstract sciences are all truth, and the fine arts all fiction, we cannot but own, that in the details of history, truth and fiction are so blended as to be scarce distinguishable.

The practical use of history, in affording particular examples of civil and military wisdom, has been greatly exaggerated; but principles of action may certainly be collected from it; and even the narrative of wars and revolutions may serve as a lesson to nations, and an admonition to sovereigns. A desire indeed of knowing past events, while the future cannot be known, and a view of the present gives often more pain than delight, seems natural to the human mind: and a happy propensity would it be if every reader of history would open his eyes to some very important corollaries, which flow from the whole extent of it. He could not but remark the constant effect of despotism in benumbing and debasing all those faculties which distinguish men from the herd that grazes; and to that cause he would impute the decided inferiority of most Asiatic nations, ancient and modern, to those in Europe who are blessed with happier governments; he would see the Arabs rising to glory while they adhered to the free maxims of their bold ancestors, and sinking to misery from the moment when those maxims were abandoned. On the other hand, he would observe with regret, that such republican governments as tend to produce virtue and happiness, cannot in their nature be permanent, but are generally succeeded by oligarchies which no good man would wish to be durable. He would then, like the king of Lydia, remember Solon, the wisest, bravest, and most accomplished of men, who asserts in four nervous lines, that "as hail and snow which mar the labours of husbandmen, proceed from elevated clouds, and, as the destructive thunderbolt follows the brilliant flash; thus is a free state ruined by men exalted in power and splendid in wealth; while the people, from gross ignorance, choose rather to become the slaves of one tyrant, that they may escape from the domination of many, than to preserve themselves from tyranny of any kind by their union and their virtues." Since, therefore, no unmixed form of government could both deserve permanence and enjoy it, and since changes, even from the worst to the best are always attended with much temporary mischief, he would fix on our British constitution (I mean our public law, not the actual state of things in any given period) as the best form ever established, though we can only make distant approaches to its theoretical perfection. In these Indian territories, which Providence has thrown into the arms of Britain for their protection and welfare, the religion, manners, and laws of the natives preclude even the idea of political freedom; but their histories may possibly suggest hints for their prosperity, while our country derives essential benefit from the diligence of a placid and submissive people, who multiply with such increase, even after the ravages of famine, that in one collectorship out of twenty-four, and that by no means the largest or best cultivated (I mean Crishna-nagar) there have lately been found, by an actual enumeration, a million and three hundred thousand native inhabitants; whence it should seem, that in all India there cannot he fewer than thirty millions of black British subjects.

Let us proceed to geography and chronology, without which history would be no certain guide, but would resemble a kindled vapour without either a settled place or a steady light. For a reason before intimated, I shall not name the various cosmographical books which are extant in Arabic and Persian, nor give an account of those which the Turks have beautifully printed in their own improved language, but shall expatiate a little on the geography and astronomy of India; having first observed generally, that all the Asiatic nations must be far better acquainted with their several countries than mere European scholars and travellers; that consequently, we must learn their geography from their own writings: and that by collating many copies of the same work, we may correct blunders of transcribers in tables, names, and descriptions.  

Geography, astronomy, and chronology have, in this part of Asia, shared the fate of authentic history; and, like that, have been so masked and bedecked in the fantastic robes of mythology and metaphor, that the real system of Indian philosophers and mathematicians can scarce be distinguished: an accurate knowledge of Sanscrit, and a confidential intercourse with learned Brahmens, are the only means of separating truth from fable; and we may expect the most important discoveries from two of our members, concerning whom it may be safely asserted, that if our Society should have produced no other advantage than the invitation given to them for the public display of their talents, we should have a claim to the thanks of our country and of all Europe. Lieutenant Wilford has exhibited an interesting specimen of the geographical knowledge deducible from the Puranas, and will in time present you with so complete a treatise on the ancient world known to the Hindus, that the light acquired by the Greeks will appear but a glimmering in comparison of that he will diffuse; while Mr. Davis, who has given us a distinct idea of Indian computations and cycles, and ascertained the place of the colures at a time of great importance in history, will hereafter disclose the systems of Hindu astronomers, from Nared and Parasar to Meya, Varahamihir, and Bhascar; and will soon, I trust, lay before you a perfect delineation of all the Indian asterisms in both hemispheres, where you will perceive so strong a general resemblance to the constellations of the Greeks, as to prove that the two systems were originally one and the same, yet with such a diversity in parts, as to show incontestibly that neither system was copied from the other; whence it will follow, that they must have had some common source.


The jurisprudence of the Hindus and Arabs being the field which I have chosen for my peculiar toil, you cannot expect that I should greatly enlarge your collection of historical knowledge; but I may be able to offer you some occasional tribute; and I cannot help mentioning a discovery which accident threw in my way, though my proofs must be reserved for an essay which I have destined for the fourth volume of your Transactions. To fix the situation of that Palybothra (for there may have been several of the name) which was visited and described by Megasthenes, had always appeared a very difficult problem, for though it could not have been Prayaga, where no ancient metropolis ever stood, nor Canyacubja, which has no epithet at all resembling the word used by the Greeks; nor Gaur, otherwise called Lacshmanavati, which all know to be a town comparatively modern, yet we could not confidently decide that it was Pataliputra, though names and most circumstances nearly correspond, because that renowned capital extended from the confluence of the Sone and the Ganges to the site of Patna, while Palibothra stood at the junction of the Ganges and Erannoboas, which the accurate M. D'Ancille had pronounced to be the Yamuna; but this only difficulty was removed, when I found in a classical Sanscrit book, near 2000 years old, that Hiranyabahu, or golden armed, which the Greeks changed into Erannoboas, or the river with a lovely murmur, was in fact another name for the Sona itself; though Megasthenes, from ignorance or inattention, has named them separately. This discovery led to another of greater moment, for Chandragupta, who, from a military adventurer, became like Sandracottus the sovereign of Upper Hindustan, actually fixed the seat of his empire at Pataliputra, where he received ambassadors from foreign princes; and was no other than that very Sandracottus who concluded a treaty with Seleucus Nicator; so that we have solved another problem, to which we before alluded, and may in round numbers consider the twelve and three hundredth years before Christ, as two certain epochs between Rama, who conquered Silan a few centuries after the flood, and Vicramaditya, who died at Ujjayini fifty-seven years before the beginning of our era.

II. Since these discussions would lead us too far, I proceed to the History of Nature
, distinguished, for our present purpose, from that of Man; and divided into that of other animals who inhabit this globe, of the mineral substances which it contains, and of the vegetables which so luxuriantly and so beautifully adorn it.

1. Could the figure, instincts, and qualities of birds, beasts, insects, reptiles, and fishes, be ascertained, either on the plan of Buffon, or on that of Linnaeus, without giving pain to the objects of our examination, few studies would afford us more solid instruction, or more exquisite delight; but I never could learn by what right, nor conceive with what feelings, a naturalist can occasion the misery of an innocent bird, and leave its young perhaps to perish in a cold nest, because it has gay plumage, and has never been accurately delineated; or deprive even a butterfly of its natural enjoyments, because it has the misfortune to be rare or beautiful; nor shall I ever forget the couplet of Firdausi, for which Sadi, who cites it with applause, pours blessings on his departed spirit: —

Ah! spare yon emmet, rich in hoarded grain;
tie lives with pleasure, and he dies with pain.


This may be only a confession of weakness, and it certainly is not meant as a boast of peculiar sensibility; but whatever name may be given to my opinion, it has such an effect on my conduct, that I never would suffer the Cocila, whose wild native woodnotes announce the approach of spring, to be caught in my garden, for the sake of comparing it with Buffon's description; though I have often examined the domestic and engaging Mayana, which bids us good morrow at our windows, and expects as its reward little more than security: even when a fine young Manis or Pangolin was brought me against my wish from the mountains, I solicited his restoration to his beloved rocks, because I found it impossible to preserve him in comfort at a distance from them. There are several treatises on Animals in Arabia, and very particular accounts of them in Chinese, with elegant outlines of their external appearance; but I met with nothing valuable concerning them in Persian, except what may be gleaned from the medical dictionaries; nor have I yet seen a book in Sanscrit that expressly treats of them. On the whole, though rare animals may be found in all Asia, yet I can only recommend an examination of them with this condition, that they be left as much as possible in a state of natural freedom; or made as happy as possible, if it be necessary to keep them confined.

2. The History of Minerals, to which no such objection can be made, is extremely simple and easy, if we merely consider their exterior look and configuration, and their visible texture; but the analysis of their internal properties belongs particularly to the sublime researches of Chemistry, on which we may hope to find useful disquisitions in Sanscrit, since the old Hindus unquestionably applied themselves to that enchanting study; and even from their treatises on alchymy we may possibly collect the results of actual experiment, as their ancient astrological works have preserved many valuable facts relating to the Indian sphere, and the procession of the equinox. Both in Persian and Sanscrit there are books on metals and minerals, particularly on gems, which the Hindu philosophers considered (with an exception of the diamond) as varieties of one crystalline substance, either simple or compound: but we must not expect from the chemists of Asia those beautiful examples of analysis which have but lately been displayed in the laboratories of Europe.

3. We now come to Botany, the loveliest and most copious division in the history of nature; and all disputes on the comparative merit of systems being at length, I hope, condemned to one perpetual night of undisturbed slumber, we cannot employ our leisure more delightfully than in describing all new Asiatic plants in the Linnaean style and method, or in correcting the descriptions of those already known, but of which dry specimens only, or drawings, can have been seen by most European botanists. In this part of natural history, we have an ample field yet unexplored; for, though many plants of Arabia have been made known by Garcias, Prosper Alpinus, and Forskoel; of Persia, by Garcin; of Tartary, by Gmelin and Pallas; of China and Japan, by Koempfer, Osbeck, and Thunberg; of India, by Rheede and Rumphias, the two Burmans, and the much lamented Koenig, yet none of those naturalists were deeply versed in the literature of the several countries from which their vegetable treasures had been procured; and the numerous works in Sanscrit on medical substances, and chiefly on plants, have never been inspected, or never at least understood, by any European attached to the study of nature. Until the garden of the India Company shall be fully stored (as it will be, no doubt, in due time) with Arabian, Persian, and Chinese plants, we may well be satisfied with examining the native flowers of our own provinces; but unless we can discover the Sanscrit names of all celebrated vegetables, we shall neither comprehend the allusions which Indian Poets perpetually make to them, nor (what is far worse) be able to find accounts of their tried virtues in the writings of Indian physicians; and (what is worst of all) we shall miss an opportunity which never again may present itself; for the Pandits themselves have almost wholly forgotten their ancient appellations of particular plants; and, with all my pains, I have not yet ascertained more than two hundred out of twice that number, which are named in their medical or poetical compositions. It is much to be deplored, that the illustrious Van Rheede had no acquaintance with Sanscrit, which even his three Brahmens, who composed the short preface engraved in that language, appear to have understood very imperfectly, and certainly wrote with disgraceful inaccuracy. In all his twelve volumes, I recollect only Bunarnava, in which the Nagari letters are tolerably right; the Hindu words in Arabian characters are shamefully incorrect; and the Malabar, I am credibly informed, is as bad as the rest. His delineations, indeed, are in general excellent; and though Linnaeus himself could not extract from his written descriptions the natural character of every plant in the collection, yet we shall be able, I hope, to describe them all from the life, and to add a considerable number of new species, if not of new genera, which Rheede, with all his noble exertions, could never procure. Such of our learned members as profess medicine, will no doubt cheerfully assist in these researches, either by their own observations, when they have leisure to make any, or by communications from other observers among their acquaintance, who may reside in different parts of the country: and the mention of their art leads me to the various uses of natural substances, in the three kingdoms or classes to which they are generally reduced.

III. You cannot but have remarked, that almost all the sciences, as the French call them, which are distinguished by Greek names, and arranged under the head of Philosophy, belong for the most part to History; such as philology, chemistry, physic, anatomy, and even metaphysics, when we barely relate the phenomena of the human mind; for, in all branches of knowledge, we are only historians when we announce facts; and philosophers only when we reason on them: the same may be confidently said of law and of medicine, the first of which belongs principally to Civil, and the second chiefly to Natural History. Here, therefore, I speak of medicine, as far only as it is grounded on experiment; and, without believing implicitly what Arabs, Persians, Chinese, or Hindus may have written on the virtues of medicinal subjects, we may surely hope to find in their writings what our own experiments may confirm or disprove, and what might never have occurred to us without such intimations.

Europeans enumerate more than two hundred and fifty mechanical arts, by which the productions of nature may be variously prepared for the convenience and ornament of life; and though the Silpasastra reduces them to sixty-four, yet Abulfazl had been assured that the Hindus reckoned three hundred arts and sciences; now, their sciences being comparatively few, we may conclude that they anciently practised at least as many useful arts as ourselves. Several Pandits have informed me, that the treatises on art, which they call Upavedas, and believe to have been inspired, are not so entirely lost but that considerable fragments of them may be found at Benares; and they certainly possess many popular, but ancient works on that interesting subject. The manufactures of sugar and indigo have been well known in these provinces for more than two thousand years; and we cannot entertain a doubt that their Sanscrit books on dying and metallurgy, contain very curious facts, which might indeed be discovered by accident in a long course of years, but which we may soon bring to light by the help of Indian literature, for the benefit of manufactures and artists, and consequently of our nation, who are interested in their prosperity. Discoveries of the same kind might be collected from the writings of other Asiatic nations, especially of the Chinese; but, though Persian, Arabic, Turkish, and Sanscrit are languages now so accessible, that in order to attain a sufficient knowledge of them, little more seems required than a strong inclination to learn them, yet the supposed number and intricacy of the Chinese characters have deterred our most diligent students from attempting to find their way through so vast a labyrinth. It is certain, however, that the difficulty has been magnified beyond the truth; for the perspicuous g rammar of M. Fourmont, together with a copious dictionary, which I possess in Chinese and Latin, would enable any man who pleased, to compare the original works of Confucius, which are easily procured, with the literal translation of them by Couplet; and having made that first step with attention, he would probably find that he had traversed at least half of his career. But I should be led beyond the limits assigned to me on this occasion, if I were to expatiate farther on the historical division of the knowledge comprised in the literature of Asia; and I must postpone till next year my remarks on Asiatic Philosophy, and on those arts which depend on imagination; promising you with confidence, that in the course of the present year, your inquiries into the civil and natural history of this eastern world will be greatly promoted by the learned labours of many among our associates and correspondents.  
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[C]onsistently with our chief object already mentioned, we may properly begin with the Civil History of the Five Asiatic Nations, which necessarily comprises their geography, or a description of the places where they have acted, and their astronomy, which may enable us to fix with some accuracy the time of their actions...

I. In the first place, we cannot surely deem it an inconsiderable advantage that all our historical researches have confirmed the Mosaic accounts of the primitive world; and our testimony on that subject ought to have the greater weight, because, if the result of our observations had been totally different, we should nevertheless have published them, not indeed with equal pleasure, but with equal confidence; for truth is mighty, and, whatever be its consequences, must always prevail; but, independently of our interest in corroborating the multiplied evidences of revealed religion, we could scarce gratify our minds with a more useful and rational entertainment than the contemplation of those wonderful revolutions in kingdoms and states which have happened within little more than four thousand years; revolutions, almost as fully demonstrative of an all-ruling Providence, as the structure of the universe, and the final causes which are discernible in its whole extent, and even in its minutest parts. Figure to your imaginations a moving picture of that eventful period, or rather, a succession of crowded scenes rapidly changed. Three families migrate in different courses from one region, and, in about four centuries, establish very distant governments and various modes of society: Egyptians, Indians, Goths, Phenicians, Celts, Greeks, Latians, Chinese, Peruvians, Mexicans, all sprung from the same immediate stem , appear to start nearly at one time, and occupy at length those countries, to which they have given, or from which they have derived their names. In twelve or thirteen hundred years more, the Greeks overrun the land of their forefathers, invade India, conquer Egypt, and aim at universal dominion; but the Romans appropriate to themselves the whole empire of Greece, and carry their arms into Britain, of which they speak with haughty contempt. The Goths, in the fulness of time, break to pieces the unwieldy Colossus of Roman power, and seize on the whole of Britain, except its wild mountains; but even those wilds become subject to other invaders, of the same Gothic lineage. During all those transactions, the Arabs possess both coasts of the Red Sea, subdue the old seat of their first progenitors, and extend their conquests, on one side through Africa, into Europe itself; on another, beyond the borders of India, part of which they annex to their flourishing empire. In the same interval the Tartars, widely diffused over the rest of the globe, swarm in the north-east, whence they rush to complete the redaction of Constantine's beautiful domains, to subjugate China, to raise in these Indian realms a dynasty splendid and powerful, and to ravage, like the two other families, the devoted regions of Iran. By this time the Mexicans and Peruvians with many races of adventurers variously intermixed, have peopled the continent and isles of America, which the Spaniards, having restored their old government in Europe, discover, and in part overcome: but a colony from Britain, of which Cicero ignorantly declared that it contained nothing valuable, obtain the possession, and finally the sovereign dominion, of extensive American districts; whilst other British subjects acquire a subordinate empire in the finest provinces of India, which the victorious troops of Alexander were unwilling to attack....

Our knowledge of Civil Asiatic History (I always except that of the Hebrews) exhibits a short evening twilight in the venerable introduction to the first book of Moses, followed by a gloomy night, in which different watches are faintly discernible, and at length we see a dawn succeeded by a sunrise more or less early, according to the diversity of regions. That no Hindu nation but the Cashmirians, have left us regular histories in their ancient language, we must ever lament; but from the Sanscrit literature, which our country has the honour of having unveiled, we may still collect some rays of historical truth, though time and a series of revolutions have obscured that light which we might reasonably have expected from so diligent and ingenious a people. The numerous Puranas and Itihasas, or poems mythological and heroic, are completely in our powers and from them we may recover some disfigured but valuable pictures of ancient manners and governments; while the popular tales of the Hindus, in prose and in verse, contain fragments of history; and even in their dramas we may find as many real characters and events as a future age might find in our own plays, if all histories of England were, like those of India, to be irrecoverably lost...

It is now clearly proved, that the first Purana contains an account of the deluge; between which and the Mohammedan conquests the history of genuine Hindu government must of course be comprehended: but we know from an arrangement of the seasons in the astronomical work of Parasara, that the war of the Pandavas could not have happened earlier than the close of the twelfth century before Christ; and Seleucus most therefore have reigned about nine centuries after that war. Now the age of Vicramaditya is given; and if we can fix on an Indian prince contemporary with Seleucus, we shall have three given points in the line of time between Rama, or the first Indian colony, and Chandrabija, the last Hindu monarch who reigned in Bahar; so that only eight hundred or a thousand years will remain almost wholly dark; and they must have been employed in raising empires or states, in framing laws, improving languages and arts, and in observing the apparent motions of the celestial bodies. A Sanscrit history of the celebrated Vicramaditya was inspected at Benares by a Pandit, who would not have deceived me, and could not himself have been deceived; but the owner of the book is dead, and his family dispersed; nor have my friends in that city been able, with all their exertions, to procure a copy of it. As to the Mogul conquests, with which modern Indian history begins, we have ample accounts of them in Persian, from Ali of Yezd, and the translations of Turkish books composed even by some of the conquerors, to Ghulam Husain, whom many of us personally know, and whose impartiality deserves the highest applause, though his unrewarded merit will give no encouragement to other contemporary historians, who, to use his own phrase in a letter to myself, may, like him, consider plain truth as the beauty of historical composition. From all these materials, and from these alone, a perfect history of India (if a mere compilation however elegant, could deserve such a title) might be collected by any studious man who had a competent knowledge of Sanscrit, Persian, and Arabic; but even in the work of a writer so qualified, we could only give absolute credence to the general outline; for, while the abstract sciences are all truth, and the fine arts all fiction, we cannot but own, that in the details of history, truth and fiction are so blended as to be scarce distinguishable.


-- Discourse X. Delivered February 28, 1793, P. 192, Excerpt from "Discourses Delivered Before the Asiatic Society: And Miscellaneous Papers, on The Religion, Poetry, Literature, Etc. of the Nations of India", by Sir William Jones


"The Deluge" redirects here. For other uses, see Deluge (disambiguation).

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The Flood of Noah and Companions (c. 1911) by Léon Comerre. Musée d'Arts de Nantes.

The Genesis flood narrative is the flood myth[a] found in chapters 6–9 of the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament.[1] The story tells of God's decision to return the Earth to its pre-creation state of watery chaos and then remake it in a reversal of creation.[2] The narrative has very strong similarities to parts of the Epic of Gilgamesh which predates the Book of Genesis.

A global flood as described in this myth is inconsistent with the physical findings of geology, paleontology and the global distribution of species.[3][4][5] A branch of creationism known as flood geology is a pseudoscientific attempt to argue that such a global flood actually occurred.[6]

Composition

Sources


See also: Documentary hypothesis

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Building the Ark (watercolor c. 1896–1902 by James Tissot)

The flood narrative is part of what scholars call the primeval history, the first 11 chapters of Genesis.[7] These chapters, fable-like and legendary, form a preface to the patriarchal narratives which follow, but show little relationship to them.[8][7][9] For example, the names of its characters and its geography—Adam ("Man") and Eve ("Life"), the Land of Nod ("Wandering"), and so on—are symbolic rather than real, and much of the narratives consist of lists of "firsts": the first murder, the first wine, the first empire-builder.[10] Few of the people, places and events depicted in the book are mentioned elsewhere in the Bible.[10]

This has led scholars to suppose that the primeval history forms a late composition attached to Genesis to serve as an introduction.[11] At one extreme are those who see it as a product of the Hellenistic period, in which case it cannot be earlier than the first decades of the 4th century BCE;[12] on the other hand the Yahwist (Jahwist) source has been dated by others, notably John Van Seters, to the exilic pre-Persian period (the 6th century BCE), precisely because the primeval history contains so much Babylonian influence in the form of myth.[13][ b]

The flood narrative is made up of two stories woven together.[14] As a result many details are contradictory, such as how long the flood lasted (40 days according to Genesis 7:17, 150 according to 7:24), how many animals were to be taken aboard the Ark (one pair of each in 6:19, one pair of the unclean animals and seven pairs of the clean in 7:2), and whether Noah released a raven which "went to and fro until the waters were dried up" or a dove which on the third occasion "did not return to him again," or possibly both.[15] Despite this disagreement on details the story forms a unified whole (some scholars see in it a "chiasm", a literary structure in which the first item matches the last, the second the second-last, and so on),[c] and many efforts have been made to explain this unity, including attempts to identify which of the two sources was earlier and therefore influenced the other.[16][d]

The flood narrative at large is composed of the Jahwist and Priestly sources; the Elohist source that the Jahwist narrative was later conjoined to apparently lacked any of the narratives pertaining to events that preceded the strife between Sarai and Hagar.[17] The Jahwist narrative, centuries older than the Priestly,[18] appears to constitute all the similarities with the flood myth from the Epic of Gilgamesh: After being discovered as righteous in a world full of iniquity, Noah builds the Ark at Yahweh's behest. He receives instruction on the number of animals to store (seven of clean animals and fowls, but two of unclean beasts). A week-long torrent causes the Deluge, which lasts forty days, after which Noah releases a dove once a week for four weeks until the dove doesn't return. Noah takes this to mean that the bird has finally found dry land to nest on. So he leads his family out of the Ark, at which point he builds an altar to Yahweh, prompting the deity to establish the Noahic covenant. The Priestly source serves largely as a tool of promoting God's overall influence in the event, inserting a narrative where God speaks directly to Noah and extolls his virtues, before vowing to establish a covenant with him and providing strict instructions as to the structure of the Ark. He then commands Noah to take with him the more famous two of every animal onto the Ark, although because the Priestly source's urtext never actually described Noah doing this, it is immediately followed by the Jahwist's contradictory claim of Noah bringing sevens for most and two for some. The Priestly source then describes the flood as lasting for 150 days, without making mention of how the waters rose as the Yahwist had — although it then explains that God shut the windows of the firmament and the abyss in order to abate the waters, which would imply they were likewise its origin as well. The end of the Priestly source's Deluge is far more gradual than the Yahwist's; instead of taking seven days, it now takes a full year, and Noah sends out a raven at the end of the tenth month, as opposed to a dove after only 40 days of rain. Eventually, at the Ark's resting place, now clarified as Ararat, it is God, and not Noah, who commands the Ark's occupants to disembark.[19][failed verification]

In summary, the 'original', Jahwist narrative of the Great Deluge was modest; a week of ostensibly non-celestial rain is followed by a forty day flood which takes a mere week to recede in order to provide Noah his stage for God's covenant. It is the Priestly Source which adds more fantastic figures of a 150-day flood, which emerged by divine hand from the heavens and earth and took ten months to finally stop up. The Jahwist source's capricious and somewhat simplistic depiction of Yahweh is clearly distinguished from the Priestly source's characteristically majestic, transcendental, and austere virtuous Yahweh.[20]

Comparative mythology

Main article: Flood myth

The flood myth originated in Mesopotamia.[21] The Mesopotamian story has three distinct versions, the Sumerian Epic of Ziusudra, (the oldest, dating from about 1600 BCE), and as episodes in two Babylonian epics, those of Atrahasis and Gilgamesh.[22]

Genesis 6:9–9:17

Summary


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The Deluge by Gustave Doré (1865)

Noah was a righteous man and walked with God. Seeing that the earth was corrupt and filled with violence, God instructed Noah to build an Ark in which he, his sons, and their wives, together with male and female of all living creatures, would be saved from the waters. Noah entered the Ark in his six hundredth year, and on the 17th day of the second month of that year "the fountains of the Great Deep burst apart and the floodgates of heaven broke open" and rain fell for forty days and forty nights until the highest mountains were covered to a depth of 15 cubits, and all earth-based life perished except Noah and those with him in the Ark.

In Jewish folklore, the kind of water that was pouring to the earth for forty days is not common rainfall; rather, God bade each drop pass through Gehenna before it fell to earth, which 'hot rain' scalded the skin of the sinners. The punishment that overtook them was befitting their crime. As their sensual desires had made them hot, and inflamed them to immoral excesses, so they were chastised by means of heated water.[23]

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1896 illustration of the symbol of the rainbow, which God created as a sign of the covenant

After 150 days, "God remembered Noah ... and the waters subsided" until the Ark rested on the mountains of Ararat. On the 27th day of the second month of Noah's six hundred and first year the earth was dry. Then Noah built an altar and made a sacrifice, and God made a covenant with Noah that man would be allowed to eat every living thing but not its blood, and that God would never again destroy all life by a flood.

The Flood and the creation narrative

The flood is a reversal and renewal of God's creation of the world.[24] In Genesis 1 God separates the "waters above the earth" from those below so that dry land can appear as a home for living things, but in the flood story the "windows of heaven" and "fountains of the deep" are opened so that the world is returned to the watery chaos of the time before creation.[25] Even the sequence of flood events mimics that of creation, the flood first covering the earth to the highest mountains, then destroying, in order, birds, cattle, beasts, "swarming creatures", and finally mankind.[25] (This parallels the Babylonian flood story in the Epic of Gilgamesh, where at the end of rain "all of mankind had returned to clay," the substance of which they had been made.)[26] The Ark itself is likewise a microcosm of Solomon's Temple.

Intertextuality

Intertextuality is the way biblical stories refer to and reflect one another. Such echoes are seldom coincidental—for instance, the word used for ark is the same used for the basket in which Moses is saved, implying a symmetry between the stories of two divinely chosen saviours in a world threatened by water and chaos.[27] The most significant such echo is a reversal of the Genesis creation narrative; the division between the "waters above" and the "waters below" the earth is removed, the dry land is flooded, most life is destroyed, and only Noah and those with him survive to obey God's command to "be fruitful and multiply."[28][full citation needed]

Religious views

Christianity


See also: Biblical literalism, Biblical inerrancy, and Biblical infallibility

The Genesis flood narrative is included in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible (see Books of the Bible). Jesus and the apostles additionally taught on the Genesis Flood narrative in New Testament writing (Matthew 24:37-39, Luke 17:26-27, 1 Peter 3:20, 2 Peter 2:5, 2 Peter 3:6, Hebrews 11:7).[29][30] Some Christian biblical scholars suggest that the flood is a picture of salvation in Christ—the Ark was planned by God and there is only one way of salvation through the door of the Ark, akin to one way of salvation through Christ.[31][29] Additionally, some scholars commenting on the teaching of the apostle Peter (1 Peter 3:18-22), connect the Ark with the resurrection of Christ; the waters burying the old world but raising Noah to a new life.[31][29] Christian scholars also highlight that 1 Peter 3:18-22 demonstrates the Genesis flood as a type to Christian baptism.[32][33][29]

Islam

Main article: Noah in Islam

The Quran states that Noah (Nūḥ) was inspired by God, believed in the oneness of God, and preached Islam.[34] God commanded Noah to build an Ark. As he was building it, the chieftains passed him and mocked him. Upon its completion, the Ark was loaded with the animals in Noah's care as well as his immediate household.[35] The people who denied the message of Noah, including one of his own sons, drowned.[36] The final resting place of the Ark was referred to as Mount Judi.[37]

Historicity

While some scholars have tried to offer possible explanations for the origins of the flood myth including a legendary retelling of a possible Black Sea deluge, the general mythological exaggeration and implausibility of the story are widely recognized by relevant academic fields. The acknowledgement of this follows closely the development of understanding of the natural history and especially the geology and paleontology of the planet.[3][38]

Noah's Ark historicity

Main article: Noah's Ark § Historicity

Commentators throughout history, including editions of Encyclopedia Britannica, have made attempts to demonstrate the Ark's existence, although a literal ark as described would not be practical[39] and geologic evidence of a biblical global flood is lacking.[40]

Setting

See also: Narrative criticism

The Masoretic Text of the Torah places the Great Deluge 1,656 years after Creation, or 1656 AM (Anno Mundi, "Year of the World"). Many attempts have been made to place this time-span at a specific date in history.[41] At the turn of the 17th century CE, Joseph Scaliger placed Creation at 3950 BCE, Petavius calculated 3982 BCE,[42][43] and according to James Ussher's chronology, Creation took place in 4004 BCE, dating the Great Deluge to 2348 BCE.[44]

Flood geology

Main articles: Flood geology, Scriptural geologist, and Antediluvian

The development of scientific geology had a profound impact on attitudes towards the biblical Flood narrative. By bringing into question the biblical chronology, which placed the Creation and the flood in a history which stretched back no more than a few thousand years, the concept of deep geological time undermined the idea of the historicity of the Ark itself. In 1823 the English theologian and natural scientist William Buckland interpreted geological phenomena as Reliquiae Diluvianae: "relics of the flood" which "attested the action of a universal deluge".[citation needed] His views were supported by others at the time, including the influential geologist Adam Sedgwick, but by 1830 Sedgwick considered that the evidence suggested only local floods. Louis Agassiz subsequently explained such deposits as the results of glaciation.[45]

In 1862, William Thomson (later to become Lord Kelvin) calculated the age of the Earth at between 24 million and 400 million years, and for the remainder of the 19th century, discussion focused not on the viability of this theory of deep time, but on the derivation of a more precise figure for the age of the Earth.[46] Lux Mundi, an 1889 volume of theological essays which marks a stage in the acceptance of a more critical approach to scripture, took the stance that readers should rely on the gospels as completely historical, but should not take the earlier chapters of Genesis literally.[47] By a variety of independent means, scientists have determined that the Earth is approximately 4.54 billion years old.

So-called "Flood Geology" was championed in the latter half of the twentieth and on into the twenty-first century by Christian fundamentalists who believe in Young Earth creationism. Historian Ronald Numbers argues that this ideological connection by Christians wanting to challenge aspects of the scientific consensus they believe contradict their religion was first established by the publication of the 1961 book, The Genesis Flood.[48] The scientific community maintains that flood geology is a pseudoscience because it contradicts a variety of facts in geology, stratigraphy, geophysics, physics, paleontology, biology, anthropology, and archeology.[6][49][3][50][51][52][53][54] For example, in contrast to the catastrophism inherent in flood geology, the science of geology relies on the Charles Lyell's established principle of uniformitarianism. In relation to geological forces, uniformitarianism explains the formation of the Earth's features by means of mostly slow-acting forces seen in operation today. In contrast, there is a lack of evidence for the catastrophic mechanisms proposed by flood geologists, and scientists do not take their claims seriously.[55]

Species distribution

By the 17th century, believers in the Genesis account faced the issue of reconciling the exploration of the New World and increased awareness of the global distribution of species with the older scenario whereby all life had sprung from a single point of origin on the slopes of Mount Ararat. The obvious answer involved mankind spreading over the continents following the destruction of the Tower of Babel and taking animals along, yet some of the results seemed peculiar. In 1646 Sir Thomas Browne wondered why the natives of North America had taken rattlesnakes with them, but not horses: "How America abounded with Beasts of prey and noxious Animals, yet contained not in that necessary Creature, a Horse, is very strange".[4]

Browne, among the first to question the notion of spontaneous generation, was a medical doctor and amateur scientist making this observation in passing. However, biblical scholars of the time, such as Justus Lipsius (1547–1606) and Athanasius Kircher (c.1601–80), had also begun to subject the Ark story to rigorous scrutiny as they attempted to harmonize the biblical account with the growing body of natural historical knowledge. The resulting hypotheses provided an important impetus to the study of the geographical distribution of plants and animals, and indirectly spurred the emergence of biogeography in the 18th century. Natural historians began to draw connections between climates and the animals and plants adapted to them. One influential theory held that the biblical Ararat was striped with varying climatic zones, and as climate changed, the associated animals moved as well, eventually spreading to repopulate the globe.[4]

There was also the problem of an ever-expanding number of known species: for Kircher and earlier natural historians, there was little problem finding room for all known animal species in the Ark. Less than a century later, discoveries of new species made it increasingly difficult to justify a literal interpretation for the Ark story.[56] By the middle of the 18th century only a few natural historians accepted a literal interpretation of the narrative.[50]

See also

• Noah's Ark
• Biblical cosmology
• Chronology of the Bible
• Noach (parsha)
• Panbabylonism

References

Footnotes


1. The term myth is used here in its academic sense, meaning "a traditional story consisting of events that are ostensibly historical, though often supernatural, explaining the origins of a cultural practice or natural phenomenon." It is not being used to mean "something that is false".
2. See John Van Seters, Prologue to History: The Yahwist as Historian in Genesis (1992), pp. 80, 155-56.
3. The controversial existence of a chiasm is not an argument against the construction of the story from two sources. See the overview in R.E. Friedman (1996), p. 91.
4. The two sources are the Priestly and the Yahwist or "non-priestly". See Bill Arnold, "Genesis" (2009), p. 97.

Citations

1. Leeming 2010, p. 469.
2. Bandstra 2009, p. 61.
3. Montgomery 2012.
4. Cohn 1999.
5.
 Kuchment, Anna (August 2012). "The Rocks Don't Lie: A Geologist Investigates Noah's Flood". Scientific American. Retrieved 31 December 2018.
 Raff, Rudolf A. (20 January 2013). "Genesis meets geology. A review of the rocks don't lie; a geologist investigates Noah's flood, by David R. Montgomery". Evolution & Development. 15 (1): 83–84. doi:10.1111/ede.12017.
 "The Rocks Don't Lie: A Geologist Investigates Noah's Flood". Publishers Weekly. 28 May 2012. Retrieved 31 December 2018.
 Bork, Kennard B. (December 2013). "David R. Montgomery. The Rocks Don't Lie: A Geologist Investigates Noah's Flood". Isis. 104 (4): 828–829. doi:10.1086/676345.
 McConnachie, James (31 August 2013). "The Rocks Don't Lie, by David R. Montgomery - review". The Spectator. Retrieved 31 December 2018.
 Prothero, Donald R. (2 January 2013). "A Gentle Journey Through the Truth in Rocks". Skeptic. Retrieved 2 January 2019.
6. Isaak 2007, pp. 237-238.
7. Cline 2007, p. 13.
8. Alter 2008, p. 13-14.
9. Sailhamer 2010, p. 301 and fn.35.
10. Blenkinsopp 2011, p. 2.
11. Sailhamer 2010, p. 301.
12. Gmirkin 2006, p. 240-241. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFGmirkin2006 (help)
13. Gmirkin 2006, p. 6. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFGmirkin2006 (help)
14. Cline 2007, p. 19.
15. Cline 2007, p. 20— Which was it—40 or 150 days? ... And how many animals ... One pair of each ... Or seven pairs of each ... And did he release a raven ... until the waters were dried up ... or did he release a dove three different times ... ?
16. Arnold 2009, p. 97.
17. Carr, David M. (2014). "Changes in Pentateuchal Criticism". In Saeboe, Magne; Ska, Jean Louis; Machinist, Peter (eds.). Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. III: From Modernism to Post-Modernism. Part II: The Twentieth Century – From Modernism to Post-Modernism. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. ISBN 978-3-525-54022-0.
18. Gmirkin, Russell (2006). Berossus and Genesis, Manetho and Exodus. Bloomsbury. p. 4. ISBN 978-0-567-13439-4.
19. Genesis 7
20. Gilbert, Christopher (2009). A Complete Introduction to the Bible. Paulist Press. ISBN 9780809145522.
21. Chen 2013, p. 1.
22. Finkel 2014, p. 88.
23. Ginzberg, Louis (1909). The Legends of the Jews Vol I : The Inmates of the Ark (Translated by Henrietta Szold) Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society.
24. Baden 2012, p. 184.
25. Keiser 2013, p. 133.
26. Keiser 2013, p. 133 fn.29.
27. Bodner 2016, p. 95-96: "There is increasing recognition that the pentateuchal narrative is seldom careless or arbitrary," write John Bergsma and Scott Hahn, "and intertextual echoes are seldom coincidental."17
28. Levenson 1988, p. 10-11.
29. "Flood, the - Baker's Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology Online". Bible Study Tools. Retrieved 18 July 2018.
30. "Creation Worldview Ministries: The New Testament and the Genesis Flood: A Hermeneutical Investigation of the Historicity, Scope, and Theological Purpose of the Noahic Deluge". http://www.creationworldview.org. Retrieved 18 July 2018.
31. W., Wiersbe, Warren (1993). Wiersbe's expository outlines on the Old Testament. Wheaton, Ill.: Victor Books. ISBN 978-0896938472. OCLC 27034975.
32. Matthew., Henry (2000). Matthew henry's concise commentary on the whole bible : nelson's concise series. [Place of publication not identified]: Nelson Reference & Electr. ISBN 978-0785245292. OCLC 947797222.
33. "The Typological Interpretation of the Old Testament, by G.R. Schmeling". http://www.bible-researcher.com. Retrieved 18 July 2018.
34. Quran 4:163, Quran 26:105–107
35. Quran 11:35–41
36. Quran 7:64
37. Quran 11:44
38. Weber, Christopher Gregory (1980). "The Fatal Flaws of Flood Geology". Creation Evolution Journal. 1 (1): 24–37.
39. Moore, Robert A. (1983). "The Impossible Voyage of Noah's Ark". Creation Evolution Journal. 4(1): 1–43. Archived from the original on 17 July 2016. Retrieved 10 July 2016.
40. Dyken, JJ (2013). The Divine Default. Algora Publishing. Archived from the original on 1 July 2016. Retrieved 23 June 2016.
41. Timeline for the Flood. AiG, 9 March 2012. Retrieved 2012-04-24.
42. Barr 2013, p. 380.
43. Young & Stearley 2008, p. 45.
44. James Barr, 1984–85. "Why the World Was Created in 4004 BC: Archbishop Ussher and Biblical Chronology", Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 67:604 PDF document
45. Herbert, Sandra (1991). "Charles Darwin as a prospective geological author". British Journal for the History of Science (24). pp. 171–174. Retrieved 24 July 2009.
46. Dalrymple 1991, pp. 14–17
47. James Barr (4 March 1987). Biblical Chronology, Fact or Fiction? (PDF). The Ethel M. Wood Lecture 1987. University of London. p. 17. ISBN 978-0718708641. Retrieved 8 August 2010.
48. Numbers, Ronald L. (2006). The creationists : from scientific creationism to intelligent design(Expanded, First Harvard University Press paperback ed.). Cambridge, Massachusetts. ISBN 0-674-02339-0. OCLC 69734583.
49. Senter, Phil. "The Defeat of Flood Geology by Flood Geology." Reports of the National Center for Science Education 31:3 (May–June 2011). Printed electronically by California State University, Northridge. Retrieved 7 June 2014.
50. Young 1995, p. 79.
51. Isaak 2006, p. unpaginated.
52. Morton 2001, p. unpaginated.
53. Isaak 2007, p. 173.
54. Stewart 2010, p. 123.
55. Isaak 1998, p. unpaginated.
56. Browne 1983, p. 276.

Bibliography

• Alter, Robert (2008). The Five Books of Moses. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 9780393070248.
• Arnold, Bill T. (2009). Genesis. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521000673.
• Baden, Joel S. (2012). The Composition of the Pentateuch. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300152647.
• Bandstra, Barry L. (2009). Reading the Old Testament : an introduction to the Hebrew Bible. Wadsworth/ Cengage Learning. ISBN 978-0495391050.
• Barr, James (28 March 2013). Bible and Interpretation: The Collected Essays of James Barr. II: Biblical Studies. OUP Oxford. p. 380. ISBN 978-0-19-969289-7.
• Blenkinsopp, Joseph (2011). Creation, Un-creation, Re-creation: A discursive commentary on Genesis 1-11. New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark. ISBN 978-0-567-37287-1.
• Bodner, Keith (2016). An Ark on the Nile: The Beginning of the Book of Exodus. Oxford University Press. p. 95. ISBN 978-0-19-878407-4.
• Browne, Janet (1983), The Secular Ark: Studies in the History of Biogeography, New Haven & London: Yale University Press, p. 276, ISBN 0-300-02460-6
• Chen, Y.C. (2013). The Primeval Flood Catastrophe: Origins and Early Development in Mesopotamian Traditions. OUP Oxford. ISBN 9780199676200.
• Cline, Eric H. (2007). From Eden to Exile: Unraveling Mysteries of the Bible. National Geographic. ISBN 978-1-4262-0084-7.
• Cohn, Norman (1999). Noah's Flood: The Genesis Story in Western Thought. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300076486.
• Cotter, David W. (2003). Genesis. Liturgical Press. ISBN 978-0814650400.
• Dalrymple, G. Brent (1991), The Age of the Earth, Stanford University Press, ISBN 0-8047-2331-1
• Finkel, Irving (2014). The Ark Before Noah. Hachette UK. ISBN 9781444757071.
• Friedman, Richard E. (1996). "Non-Arguments Concerning the Documentary Hypothesis". In Fox, Michael V.; Hurowitz, V. A. (eds.). Texts, Temples and Traditions. Eisenbrauns. ISBN 9781575060033.
• Gmirkin, Russell E. (2006). Berossus and Genesis, Manetho and Exodus. Bloomsbury. ISBN 9780567134394.
• Habel, Norman C. (1988). "Two Flood Myths". In Dundes, Alan (ed.). The Flood Myth. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520063532.
• Isaak, M (1998). "Problems with a Global Flood". TalkOrigins Archive. Retrieved 29 March 2007.
• Isaak, Mark (5 November 2006). "Index to Creationist Claims, Geology". TalkOrigins Archive. Retrieved 2 November 2010.
• Isaak, Mark (2007). The Counter-Creationism Handbook. University of California Press.
• Keiser, Thomas A. (2013). Genesis 1-11: Its Literary Coherence and Theological Message. Wipf and Stock Publishers. ISBN 9781625640925.
• Leeming, David A. (2010). Creation Myths of the World: An Encyclopedia. 1. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9781598841749.
• Levenson, Jon Douglas (1988). Creation and the persistence of evil : the Jewish drama of divine omnipotence. Harper & Row. ISBN 9780062548450. OCLC 568745811.
• Levenson, Jon D. (2004). "Genesis: introduction and annotations". In Berlin, Adele; Brettler, Marc Zvi (eds.). The Jewish Study Bible. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195297515.
• Middleton, J. Richard (2005). The Liberating Image: The Imago Dei in Genesis 1. Brazos Press. ISBN 9781441242785.
• Montgomery, David R. (2012). The Rocks Don't Lie: A Geologist Investigates Noah's Flood. Norton. ISBN 9780393082395.
• Morton, Glenn (17 February 2001). "The Geologic Column and its Implications for the Flood". TalkOrigins Archive. Retrieved 2 November 2010.
• Sailhamer, John H. (2010). The Meaning of the Pentateuch: Revelation, Composition and Interpretation. InterVarsity Press. ISBN 9780830878888.
• Stewart, Melville Y. (2010). Science and religion in dialogue. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. p. 123. ISBN 978-1-4051-8921-7.
• Young, Davis A. (1995). "Diluvial Cosmogonies and the Beginnings of Geology". The Biblical Flood: A Case Study of the Church's Response to Extrabiblical Evidence. Eerdmans. p. 79. ISBN 978-0-8028-0719-9. Archived from the original on 31 March 2007.
• Young, Davis A.; Stearley, Ralph F. (18 August 2008). The Bible, Rocks and Time: Geological Evidence for the Age of the Earth. InterVarsity Press. p. 45. ISBN 978-0-8308-2876-0.

Further reading

• Hamilton, Victor P (1990). The book of Genesis: chapters 1–17. Eerdmans. ISBN 9780802825216.
• Kessler, Martin; Deurloo, Karel Adriaan (2004). A commentary on Genesis: the book of beginnings. Paulist Press. ISBN 9780809142057.
• McKeown, James (2008). Genesis. Eerdmans. ISBN 9780802827050.
• Rogerson, John William (1991). Genesis 1–11. T&T Clark. ISBN 9780567083388.
• Sacks, Robert D (1990). A Commentary on the Book of Genesis. Edwin Mellen.
• Towner, Wayne Sibley (2001). Genesis. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 9780664252564.
• Wenham, Gordon (2003). "Genesis". In James D. G. Dunn, John William Rogerson (ed.). Eerdmans Bible Commentary. Eerdmans. ISBN 9780802837110.
• Whybray, R.N (2001). "Genesis". In John Barton (ed.). Oxford Bible Commentary. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198755005.
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Mahāparinibbāṇa Sutta
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 7/10/21

For the Mahayana sutra, see Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra.

19. When the Blessed One had stayed at Nalanda as long as he pleased, he addressed the Venerable Ananda thus:

"Come, Ananda, let us go to Pataligama."

"So be it, Lord."

And the Blessed One took up his abode at Pataligama together with a large community of bhikkhus.

20. Then the devotees of Pataligama came to know: "The Blessed One, they say, has arrived at Pataligama." And they approached the Blessed One, respectfully greeted him, sat down at one side, and addressed him thus: "May the Blessed One, Lord, kindly visit our council hall." And the Blessed One consented by his silence.

21. Knowing the Blessed One's consent, the devotees of Pataligama rose from their seats, respectfully saluted him, and keeping their right sides towards him, departed for the council hall. Then they prepared the council hall by covering the floor all over, arranging seats and water, and setting out an oil lamp. Having done this, they returned to the Blessed One, respectfully greeted him, and standing at one side, announced: "Lord, the council hall is ready, with the floor covered all over, seats and water prepared, and an oil lamp has been set out. Let the Blessed One come, Lord, at his convenience.

22. And the Blessed One got ready, and taking his bowl and robe, went to the council hall together with the company of bhikkhus. After rinsing his feet, the Blessed One entered the council hall and took his seat close to the middle pillar, facing east. The community of bhikkhus, after rinsing their feet, also entered the council hall and took seats near the western wall, facing east, so that the Blessed One was before them. And the devotees of Pataligama, after rinsing their feet and entering the council hall, sat down near the eastern wall, facing west, so that the Blessed One was in front of them.

The Fruits of an Immoral and a Moral Life

23. Thereupon the Blessed One addressed the devotees of Pataligama thus: "The immoral man, householders, by falling away from virtue, encounters five perils: great loss of wealth through heedlessness; an evil reputation; a timid and troubled demeanor in every society, be it that of nobles, brahmans, householders, or ascetics; death in bewilderment; and, at the breaking up of the body after death, rebirth in a realm of misery, in an unhappy state, in the nether world, in hell.

24. "Five blessings, householders, accrue to the righteous man through his practice of virtue: great increase of wealth through his diligence; a favorable reputation; a confident deportment, without timidity, in every society, be it that of nobles, brahmans, householders, or ascetics; a serene death; and, at the breaking up of the body after death, rebirth in a happy state, in a heavenly world."

25. And the Blessed One spent much of the night instructing the devotees of Pataligama in the Dhamma, rousing, edifying, and gladdening them, after which he dismissed them, saying: "The night is far advanced, householders. You may go at your convenience.

"So be it, Lord." And the devotees of Pataligama rose from their seats, respectfully saluted the Blessed One, and keeping their right sides towards him, departed. And the Blessed One, soon after their departure, retired into privacy.

26. At that time Sunidha and Vassakara, the chief ministers of Magadha, were building a fortress at Pataligama in defense against the Vajjis. And deities in large numbers, counted in thousands, had taken possession of sites at Pataligama. In the region where deities of great power prevailed, officials of great power were bent on constructing edifices; and where deities of medium power and lesser power prevailed, officials of medium and lesser power were bent on constructing edifices.

27. And the Blessed One saw with the heavenly eye, pure and transcending the faculty of men, the deities, counted in thousands, where they had taken possession of sites in Pataligama. And rising before the night was spent, towards dawn, the Blessed One addressed the Venerable Ananda thus: "Who is it, Ananda, that is erecting a city at Pataligama?"

"Sunidha and Vassakara, Lord, the chief ministers of Magadha, are building a fortress at Pataligama, in defence against the Vajjis."

28. "It is, Ananda, as if Sunidha and Vassakara had taken counsel with the gods of the Thirty-three. For I beheld, Ananda, with the heavenly eye, pure and transcending the faculty of men, a large number of deities, counted in thousands, that have taken possession of sites at Pataligama. In the region where deities of great power prevail, officials of great power are bent on constructing edifices; and where deities of medium and lesser power prevail, officials of medium and lesser power are bent on constructing edifices. Truly, Ananda, as far as the Aryan race extends and trade routes spread, this will be the foremost city Pataliputta, a trade-center. [16] [Puta-bhedanam. Comy. explains as the breaking open, the unpacking, of boxes (puta) of merchandise for the purpose of distribution. But probably it refers to the bursting open of the seed-box of the patali flower.] But Pataliputta, Ananda, will be assailed by three perils — fire, water, and dissension."


-- Maha-parinibbana Sutta: Last Days of the Buddha, translated from the Pali by Sister Vajira & Francis Story


The Mahāparinibbāṇa Sutta महापरिनिर्वाण सुत्त'' is Sutta 16 in the Digha Nikaya, a scripture belonging to the Sutta Pitaka of Theravada Buddhism. It concerns the end of Gautama Buddha's life - his parinibbana - and is the longest sutta of the Pāli Canon. Because of its attention to detail, it has been resorted to as the principal source of reference in most standard accounts of the Buddha's death.[1][full citation needed]

Content

The sutta begins a few days before the rainy retreat when Vassakara, the minister, visited the Buddha in Rajgir on the initiative of Ajatashatru, a king of the Haryanka dynasty of Magadha. The narrative continues beyond the three months of the rainy retreat and records the passing away of the Buddha, his cremation and the division of relics finally ending with the erection of eight cetiyas or monuments enshrining the relics of the Buddha.[2] This shows the Indian origin of Buddhist funeral customs.[3]

Versions

There are numerous versions of the Mahāparinibbāṇa Sutta. Among them, the Pali version is of an early date in respect of language and contents. The Mahāparinibbāṇa Sutta is of utmost historical and cultural value and therefore it has become a sourcebook for students of Buddhism, Buddha biography and history of Buddhist thought and literature. Other versions of the text exist in Sanskrit, Tibetan and Chinese.

Date of Composition

On the basis of philological evidence, Indologist and Pali expert Oskar von Hinüber says that some of the Pali suttas have retained very archaic place-names, syntax, and historical data from close to the Buddha's lifetime, including the Mahāparinibbāṇa Sutta. Hinüber proposes a composition date of no later than 350-320 BCE for this text, which would allow for a "true historical memory" of the events approximately 60 years prior if the short chronology for the Buddha's lifetime is accepted (but also reminds us that such a text was originally intended more as hagiography than as an exact historical record of events).[4][5]

The contents of narratives about the First Buddhist Council follow closely the narrative presented in the Mahāparinibbāṇa Sutta, leading scholars like Louis Finot and Erich Frauwallner to conclude that they originally formed a single continuous narrative.[6] These narratives of the First Council and found in part or in whole in all six extant Vinaya traditions, whose organization and basic contents are believed by many scholars to stem from before the earliest schisms in the Buddhist Sangha.[6][7] In some versions, the contents of the Sutta are included before the narrative of the First Council that ends the Skandhaka section of the Vinaya Pitakas. In other cases, the sutta narrative and the council narrative are divided between the Sutta Pitaka and Vinaya Pitaka.[6]

See also

• Pāli Canon
• Sutta Piṭaka
• Digha Nikāya
• Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra
• Shinnyo-en

References

1. Buddhism: Critical Concepts in Religious Studies, Paul Williams, Published by Taylor & Francis, 2005. page 190
2. http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/missi ... lished.pdf
3. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/top ... #ref888742
4. Oskar von Hinüber "Hoary past and hazy memory. On the history of early Buddhist texts", in Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, Volume 29, Number 2: 2006 (2008), pp.198-206
5. see also: Michael Witzel, (2009), "Moving Targets? Texts, language, archaeology and history in the Late Vedic and early Buddhist periods." in Indo-Iranian Journal 52(2-3): 287-310.
6. Frauwallner, Erich (1956). The Earliest Vinaya and the Beginnings of Buddhist Literature. Rome: Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente. pp. 41–46. ISBN 8857526798.
7. Schopen, Gregory (2004). "Vinaya". MacMillan Encyclopedia of Buddhism. 1. New York: MacMillan Reference USA. pp. 885–89. ISBN 0-02-865719-5.

Bibliography

• Buswell, Robert Jr; Lopez, Donald S. Jr., eds. (2013). "Mahāparinibbānasuttanta", in Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. pp. 502–504. ISBN 9780691157863.
• Rhys Davids, T. W. and C. A. F. trans. (1910). Dialogues of the Buddha, part II, Oxford University Press, pp. 78–191.
• von Hinüber, Oskar (2009). Cremated like a King: The Funeral of the Buddha within the Ancient Indian Cultural Context, Journal of the International College for Postgraduate Buddhist Studies 13, 33-66
• Walshe, Maurice, trans. (1987). “Mahaparinibbana Sutta: The Great Passing.” In Thus Have I Heard: The Long Discourses of the Buddha. London: Wisdom Publications.

External links

Pali text


• Mahāparinibbānasutta in the original Pali SuttaCentral

Translations

• The Great Discourse on the Buddha's Extinguishment, translation by Bhikkhu Sujato
• The Discourse about the Great Emancipation, translation by Bhikkhu Ānandajoti
• "Maha-parinibbana Sutta," or PDF, translated from the Pali by Sister Vajira & Francis Story
Essays
• "Mahaparinibbana-sutta and Cullavagga," article by Louis Finot, published in the "Indian Historical Quarterly" (8:2, 1932 June 1, pp. 241–46), concerning the Mahaparinibbana Sutta and a related text.
• "Did Buddha die of mesenteric infarction?" by Ven. Dr. Mettanando Bhikkhu, a Thai monk and former medical doctor, published in the "Bangkok Post" (2000 May 17).
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

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Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 7/10/21

For the sutta of the Pāli Canon, see Mahaparinibbana Sutta.

The Buddha said: "O Manjushri! Do not enter into the all-wonderful depths of the “Paramartha-satya” of all dharmas. Explain things by means of secular truth." Manjushri said: "O World-Honoured One! To the east, beyond worlds as numerous as the sands of 20 Ganges, is a world called "Acala". The site where the Buddha of that country resides is extensive and all-equal and is as large as 12,000 yojanas lengthwise and crosswise. The ground is made of jewels and has no earth or stones. All is flat and soft, and there are no ditches or pits. All the trees are made of the four gems, namely, gold, silver, beryl, and crystal. Flowers and fruits are in abundance, and there is no time when these are not present. As people come into contact with the flowers and their fragrance, their body and mind experience peace and bliss, which can be likened to a bhiksu sitting in the third dhyana. And there are 3,000 great rivers that surround the land. The water is delicate and wonderful and is perfect in the eight tastes. The people who bathe in it experience joy and bliss comparable to the state of a bhiksu in the second dhyana. The rivers contain various flowers, such as the utpala, padma, kumuda, pundarika, the fragrant, the greatly fragrant, the wonderfully fragrant, the nitya, and the bloom that unhinderedly protects all beings. Also, on both banks are numerous flowers, such as the atimuktaka, campaka, pataliputra, varsika, mallika, mahamallika, simmallika, sumana, yukthika, dhanika, nitya, and the bloom that unhinderedly protects all beings. The river-bed is of golden sand, and there are flights of stairs on the four sides, made of gold, silver, beryl, and crystal of mixed colours. Numerous birds fly over these. Also, there live many tigers, wolves, lions, and all kinds of evil birds and beasts [there], all of whom, however, regard one another with the mind of a baby. There is in that land no one who carries out the grave offences, nor are there those who slander Dharma, nor are there any icchantikas, nor those who have committed the five deadly sins. The land is good and fit, so that there is no cold or heat, and no sufferings from famine or thirst; no greed, anger, indolence or jealousy reign there; there is no talk of sun and moon, no day and night, and there are no seasons; all obtains as in Trayastrimsa Heaven. The people of that land shine and have no arrogance in their mind. All are Bodhisattvamahasattvas; all possess divine powers and great virtues, and their minds look up to Wonderful Dharma. They ride in the Mahayana, love the Mahayana, die for, and protect, the Mahayana. They are accomplished in great Wisdom, are perfect in the Mahayana, and always pity all beings. The Buddha of that land is Tathagata-Full-Moonlight, who is an Alms–Deserving, All-Enlightened One, an All-Accomplished One, a Well-Gone, an All-Knower, an Unsurpassed One, Best Trainer, and Teacher of Gods and Humans, a Buddha-World-Honoured One. He delivers sermons where he resides. And there is not a single land that cannot indeed hear [them]. He delivers a sermon on the Great Nirvana Sutra to Bodhisattva Vaiduryaprabha. "O good man! If a Bodhisattva-mahasattva thoroughly practises the Way of the Great Nirvana Sutra, those who cannot actually hear can also hear." This Bodhisattva-mahasattva Vaiduryaprabha questions Buddha Full-Moonlight as Bodhisattva All-Shining Highly-Virtuous King [questions me]. All is the same, and there is nothing different.

-- The Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra, Translated into English by Kosho Yamamoto, from Dharmakshema’s Chinese version, 1973


Image
A Sui dynasty manuscript of the Nirvāṇa Sūtra

The Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra (महापरिनिर्वाण सूत्र, traditional Chinese: 大般涅槃經; pinyin: Dàbānnièpán-jīng; Japanese: Daihatsunehan-gyō, Tibetan: མྱང་འདས་ཀྱི་མདོ་[1]) or Nirvana Sutra is a Tathāgatagarbha sūtra of Mahāyāna Buddhism.[note 1] Its precise date of origin is uncertain, but its early form may have developed in or by the second century CE. The original Sanskrit text is not extant except for a small number of fragments, but it survives in Chinese and Tibetan translation. It was translated into Chinese twice from two apparently substantially different source texts, with the 421 CE translation of Dharmakṣema being about four times longer than the 416 translation of Faxian. The two versions also differ in their teachings on Buddha-nature: Dharmakṣema's indicates all sentient beings have the potential to attain Buddhahood, but Faxian's states some will never attain Buddhahood. Ultimately, Dharmakṣema's version was far more popular in East Asia and his version of the text had a strong impact on East Asian Buddhism.[2] this sutra is not a context in Digha Nikaya's The Mahaparinibbana sutta of the Hinayanists (Theravada).

History

Versions


The text of the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra in the original Sanskrit has survived only in a number of fragments, which were discovered in Central Asia, Afghanistan and Japan. It exists in Chinese and Tibetan versions of varying lengths. There are four extant versions of the sūtra, each translated from various Sanskrit editions:[3]

1. The "six fascicle text",[note 2] the translation into Chinese by Faxian and Buddhabhadra, translated during the Jin dynasty (266–420) between 416 and 418, containing six fascicles, which is the shortest and earliest version;
2. The "northern text", with 40 fascicles,[note 3] translated by Dharmakṣema between 421 and 430 in the Northern Liang kingdom, containing forty fascicles. This version was also translated into Classical Tibetan from the Chinese.
3. The "southern text",[note 4] with 36 fascicles, in approximately 453 by Huiguan and Huiyan during the Liu Song dynasty, integrated and amended the translations of Faxian and Dharmakṣema into a single edition of thirty-six fascicles;
4. The Tibetan version (c790CE) by Jinamitra, Jñānagarbha, and Devacandra;


According to Hodge, some other versions have also existed:[3]

• a secondary Chinese version of Dharmakṣema's translation, completed in 453 CE. This was produced "by polishing the style and adding new section headings";[3]
• Chinese catalogues of translations mention two other Chinese translations, slightly earlier than Faxian, which are no longer extant.[3]

Origins and development

According to Shimoda Masahiro, the authors of the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra were leaders and advocates of stupa-worship. The term buddhadhātu originally referred to śarīra or physical relics of the Buddha. The authors of the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra used the teachings of the Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra to reshape the worship of the śarīra into worship of the inner Buddha as a principle of salvation: the Buddha-nature. "Buddhadhātu" came to be used in place of tathagatagarbha, referring to a concrete entity existing inside the person.[4] Sasaki, in a review of Shimoda, conveys a key premise of Shimoda's work, namely, that the origins of Mahayana Buddhism and the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra are entwined.[5]

The Indian version of the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra underwent a number of stages in its composition. Masahiro Shimoda discerns two versions:[5]

1. a short proto-Nirvāṇa Sūtra, which was, he argues, probably not distinctively Mahāyāna, but quasi-Mahāsāṃghika in origin and would date to 100 CE, if not even earlier;
2. an expanded version of this core text was then developed and would have comprised chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7 of the Faxian and Tibetan versions, though it is believed that in their present state there is a degree of editorial addition in them from the later phases of development.

The sutra was further developed in China by the Chinese translator Dharmakṣema in the fifth century CE, who added a thirty extra fascicles to the original core text.
[6]:124–5[7]

Dating

Image
Cave complex associated with the Mahāsāṃghika sect. Karla Caves, Mahārāṣtra, India

Scholars believe that the compilation of the core portion (corresponding to the Faxian and Tibetan translations) must have occurred at an early date, during or prior to the 2nd century CE, based on internal evidence and on Chinese canonical catalogs.[6][8]

Using textual evidence in the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra and related texts, Stephen Hodge estimates a compilation period between 100 CE and 220 CE for the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra. Hodge summarizes his findings as follows:[9]

[T]here are strong grounds based on textual evidence that the MPNS (Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra), or a major portion of it, together with related texts were compiled in the Deccan during the second half of the 2nd century CE, in a Mahāsāṃghika environment, probably in one of their centres along the western coastal region such as Karli, or perhaps, though less likely, the Amaravatī-Dhanyakaṭaka region.


Place of origin and Indian dissemination

The history of the text is extremely complex, but the consensus view is that the core portion of this sutra[note 5] was compiled in the Indian subcontinent, possibly in Andhra, South India.[10][11][12][9]

The language used in the sūtra and related texts seems to indicate a region in southern India during the time of the Śātavāhana dynasty. The Śātavāhana rulers gave rich patronage to Buddhism, and were involved with the development of the cave temples at Karla and Ajaṇṭā, and also with the Great Stūpa at Amarāvati. During this time, the Śātavāhana dynasty also maintained extensive links with the Kuṣāṇa Empire.[9]

According to Stephen Hodge, internal textual evidence in the Aṅgulimālīya Sūtra, Mahābherihāraka Parivarta Sūtra, and the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra indicates that these texts were first circulated in South India and they then gradually propagated up to the northwest, with Kashmir being the other major center. The Aṅgulimālīya Sūtra gives a more detailed account by mentioning the points of distribution as including South India, the Vindhya Range, Bharuch, and Kashmir.[9]

Translations

China

Earliest translations


According to early Chinese sutra catalogues such as the Lidai Sanbao ji (歷代三寶紀), a part of the core portion of the sutra was translated previously into Chinese by Dharmarakṣa (fl. c260-280), though this version is now lost.[6]:124

Faxian

Though the translation of the "six fascicle" version is conventionally ascribed to Faxian (法顯), this attribution is probably inaccurate. According to Faxian's own account, the manuscript copy forming the basis of the six juan Chinese version was obtained by him in Pāṭaliputra from the house of a layman known as Kālasena, during his travels in India. The earliest surviving Chinese sutra catalogue, Sengyou's Chu Sanzang Jiji (出三藏記集), which was written less than 100 years after the date of this translation, makes no mention of Faxian. Instead it states that the translation was done by Buddhabhadra and his assistant Baoyun (寶雲), quoting earlier catalogues to corroborate this attribution. The idea that Faxian was involved in the translation only emerges in later catalogues, compiled several hundred years after the event.[13]

Zhimeng

Chinese canonical records also mention that a now lost translation was made by the Chinese monk Zhimeng who studied in India from 404-424 CE. According to Zhimeng's own account, he also obtained his manuscript from the same layman in Pataliputra as Faxian did some years earlier.[6][14]:231

Dharmakṣema

The translation done by Dharmakṣema from 421 CE onwards may for a large part be based on a non-Indian text.[15]

The first ten fascicles may be based on a birch-bark manuscript of the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra from North-Western India that Dharmakṣema brought with him, which he used for the initial translation work of his version. This version corresponds overall in content to the "six fascicle" version and the Tibetan version.[16]:157[17][6]:104

Dharmakṣema's translation of the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra extends for a further thirty fascicles, beyond the first ten fascicles of this sutra. Many scholars doubt if these thirty fascicles are based on an Indian Sanskrit text. The chief reasons for this skepticism are these:[18]:12–13

• no traces of an extended Sanskrit text has ever been found, while Sanskrit manuscript fragments of twenty four separate pages distributed right across the core portion of the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra have been found over the past hundred years in various parts of Asia;[18]:12–13
• no quotations are known from this latter portion in any Indian commentaries or sutra anthologies;[15]
• no other translator in China or Tibet ever found Sanskrit copies of this portion.[15]
• In addition, these doubts correspond with an account from the Chinese monk-translator Yijing,[note 6] who mentions that he searched for a copy of the enlarged Mahaparinirvāṇa-sūtra through all that time, but only found manuscripts corresponding to the core portion of this work.[6]


In addition, these doubts correspond with an account from the Chinese monk-translator Yijing,[note 6] who mentions that he searched for a copy of the enlarged Mahaparinirvāṇa-sūtra through all that time, but only found manuscripts corresponding to the core portion of this work.[6]
For these reasons, textual scholars generally regard the authenticity of the latter portion as dubious. It may have been a local Central Asian composition at best, or else written by Dharmakṣema himself, who had both the ability and the motive for doing so.[6]:124–5[7] On the strength of their investigations, certain specialist scholars have formulated and expressed a theory in which they suggest that this latter portion of the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra translated by Dharmakṣema may not represent a definitive source, for scholars, for the history of the development, in India, of the Buddha-nature concept and related doctrines.[18][19]

English translations

• Yamamoto, Kosho, trans. (1973-1975). The Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra, 3 Volumes, Karinbunko, Ube City, Japan.[note 7]
• Blum, Mark, trans. (2013). The Nirvana Sutra: Volume 1 (of a projected 4), Berkeley, Calif. : BDK America (distr.: Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press). ISBN 978-1-886439-46-7.
• Kato, Yasunari, trans. (2014). Daihatsunehankyou Vol.2: Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra Vol.2, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 9781499284355
• Yamamoto & Page, Dr. Tony, trans. (2015). Nirvana Sutra: A Translation of Dharmakshema's Northern version, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 978-1517631727

Teachings

See also: Two truths doctrine

According to Sallie B. King, the sutra does not represent a major innovation, and is rather unsystematic,[21] which made it "a fruitful one for later students and commentators, who were obliged to create their own order and bring it to the text".[21] According to King, its most important innovation is the linking of the term buddhadhātu[note 8] with tathagatagarbha.[21] The "nature of the Buddha" is presented as a timeless, eternal "Self", which is akin to the tathagatagarbha, the innate possibility in every sentient being to attain Buddha-hood and manifest this timeless Buddha-nature.[22] "[I]t is obvious that the Mahaparinirvana Sutra does not consider it impossible for a Buddhist to affirm an atman provided it is clear what the correct understanding of this concept is, and indeed the sutra clearly sees certain advantages in doing so."[23]

The Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṅa Sūtra, especially influential in East Asian Buddhist thought, goes so far as to speak of it as our true self (ātman). Its precise metaphysical and ontological status is, however, open to interpretation in the terms of different Mahāyāna philosophical schools; for the Madhyamikas it must be empty of its own existence like everything else; for the Yogacarins, following the Laṅkāvatāra, it can be identified with store consciousness, as the receptacle of the seeds of awakening.[24]


Context

The Nirvana Sutra is an eschatological text.[9] Its core was written in India in a time which was perceived as the age in which the Buddha-dharma would perish, and all the Mahayana sutras disappear. The sutra responds to this awaited end with the proclamation of the tathagatagarbha, the innate Buddhahood present in all man:[9]

[T]he tathâgata-garbha doctrine was promoted precisely as a means to save as many people as possible in a short time. Put simply, this doctrine teaches that Buddhahood already lies within all beings as an innate spiritual nature. This spiritual nature is concealed by ignorance and multitudes of afflictive factors – the kleśas – and needs to be awakened and revealed. The presence of this nature implies that all beings, in theory, may awaken to Buddhahood quite rapidly, if only they would recognize the presence of that nature within themselves. The role of the MPNS itself is not only to inform people about this innate spiritual nature, but also to act as a trigger which engenders the necessary willingness in people to uncover their inherent Buddhahood, provided they listen to the sûtra with open-mindedness, faith and confidence in its veracity [...] the MPNS itself claims to have a salvific role due to its own numinous power as the last teachings of the Buddha before his parinirvâna.[9]


The existence of the tathagatagarbha must be taken on faith:

Essentially the Buddha asks his audience to accept the existence of buddha-nature [tathagatagarbha] on faith [...] the importance of faith in the teachings of the Nirvana Sutra as a whole must not be overlooked.[25]


Buddhadhātu

A central focus of the Nirvana Sutra is the Buddha-nature,[note 8] "the nature of the Buddha", that which constitutes a Buddha.[22] According to Sally King, the sutra speaks about Buddha-nature in so many different ways, that Chinese scholars created a list of types of Buddha-nature that could be found in the text.[21]

Buddha-nature, "true Self" and Emptiness

The buddhadhātu is described as a true self, due to its eternal nature.[26] It is what remains when "non-Self" is discarded:

What the Buddha says here is that he spoke thus to meet the occasion. But now the thought is established [of non-Self], he means to say what is true, which is about the inner content of nirvana itself [...] If there is no more any non-Self, what there exists must be the Self.'[27]


According to Dharmakṣema's extended version of the sutra, this "true Self" is eternal, unchanging, blissful, pure, inviolate and deathless:

... if the non-eternal is made away with [in Nirvana], what there remains must be the Eternal; if there is no more any sorrow, what there remains must be Bliss; if there is no more any non-Self, what exists there must be the Self; if there is no longer anything that is impure, what there is must be the Pure.[27]


Paul Williams notes:

Nevertheless the sutra as it stands is quite clear that while [...] we can speak of [the tathagatagharba] as Self, actually it is not at all a Self, and those who have such Self-notions cannot perceive the tathagatagarbha and thus become enlightened.[28][23]


Williams also comments:

One thing anyway is clear. The Mahaparinirvana Sutra teaches a really existing, permanent element (Tibetan: yang dag khams) in sentient beings. It is this element which enables sentient beings to become Buddhas. It is beyond egoistic self-grasping -– indeed the very opposite of self-grasping -– but it otherwise fulfils several of the requirements of a Self in the Indian tradition. Whether this is called the Real, True, Transcendental Self or not is as such immaterial, but what is historically interesting is that this sutra in particular (although joined by some other Tathagatagarbha sutras) is prepared to use the word ‘Self’ (atman) for this element. However one looks at it, the Mahaparinirvana Sutra is quite self-consciously modifying or criticizing the not-Self traditions of Buddhism ...[29]


Mark Blum speaks both of the fictitious discursive self and the real Self of the Buddha-nature. Commenting both on the non-Self and Emptiness teachings of the Nirvana Sutra, he states:

For the Nirvana Sutra, nonself is treated like another negative expression of truth, emptiness. That is, nonself is a very important doctrine to be expounded when the listener is attached to his or her notion of selfhood or personality, because it deconstructs that object of attachment, revealing its nature as a fantasy. Emptiness likewise performs the function of deconstructing attachments to notions of identity in things or ideas. But both are merely tools, or upaya (skillful means) and not final truths in and of themselves. Regarding emptiness, we find a strong assertion of the sacred nature of nonemptiness ... [and] although the discursive, evaluating self is fiction, there does exist a genuine self and that, according to the sutra, is precisely the buddha-nature.[30]


Eternal Buddha

Main article: Dharmakāya

Mark Blum stresses the fact that the Buddha in this sutra is presented, on the eve of his Great Nirvana, as one who is not subject to the processes of birth and death, but abides undying forever:

He [the Buddha] makes it clear that while he will disappear from their [i.e. beings'] sight, he is not going to die, because in fact he was never born in the first place. In other words, buddhas are not created phenomena and therefore have no beginning and no end.[31]


The Buddha is presented as (an) eternal Being, transcending normal human limitations:

What is the Tathagata [Buddha]? [...] He is one who is eternal and unchanging. He is beyond the human notion of "is" or "is-not". He is Thusness [tathata], which is both phenomenon and noumenon, put together. Here, the carnal notion of man is sublimated and explained from the macrocosmic standpoint of existence of all and all. And this Dharmakaya is at once Wisdom and Emancipation [moksha]. In this ontological enlargement of the concept of existence of the Buddha Body [buddhakaya], this sutra and, consequently, Mahayana, differs from the Buddha of Primitive Buddhism.[32]


Kosho Yamamoto gives a series of equations:

Thus, there comes about the equation of: Buddha Body = Dharmakaya = eternal body = eternal Buddha = Eternity.[32]


Tathagatagarbha

The Buddha-nature is equated with the Tathagatagarbha. According to Sally King, the term tathāgatagarbha may be understood in two ways:[33]

1. "embryonic tathāgata", the incipient Buddha, the cause of the Tathāgata,

2. "womb of the tathāgata", the fruit of Tathāgata.

The Chinese translated the term tathāgata in its meaning as "womb", c.q. "fruit". It was translated as Chinese: 如來藏; pinyin: rúlái zàng,[33] "tathāgata storehouse" [34] "Buddha-matrix", or "Buddha embryo", the innate possibility of every sentient being to attain awakening[21] in every sentient being. According to Mark Blum, Dharmaksema translates tathāgatagārbha as Chinese: 如來密藏; pinyin: rúlái mìzàng or simply mìzàng,[25] "tathagata's hidden treasury". He notes that the two major Chinese versions of the sutra don't use the literal Chinese term for embryo or womb, but speak of the "wondrous interior treasure-house of the Buddha" found in all beings. "We never see a word that specifically means embryo or womb used for garbha in either Chinese translation of this sutra."[25]

This "hidden treasury" is present in all sentient beings: "[the Buddha] expounds the doctrine that this quality [of the hidden interior, wondrous treasury] is not only common to buddhas but to all living beings as well."[25] The Buddha-nature is always present, in all times and in all beings. According to Liu, this does not mean that sentient beings are at present endowed with the qualities of a Buddha, but that they will have those qualities in the future.[22] It is obscured from worldly vision by the screening effect of tenacious negative mental afflictions within each being. Once these negative mental states have been eliminated, however, the buddhadhātu is said to shine forth unimpededly and can then be consciously "entered into", and therewith deathless Nirvana attained:[35]

[T]he tathagatagarbha is none but Thusness or the Buddha Nature, and is the originally untainted pure mind which lies overspread by, and exists in, the mind of greed and anger of all beings. This bespeaks a Buddha Body that exists in a state of bondage.[36]


Icchantikas

Despite the fact that the Buddha-nature is innate in all sentient beings, there is a class of people who are excluded from salvation, the Icchantikas, "extremists":[9]

[A]ny person, no matter whether they are a monk, a nun, a lay-man or lay-woman, who rejects this sûtra with abusive words, and does not even ask for forgiveness afterwards, has entered the icchantika path.[9]


The longer versions of the Nirvana Sutra additionally give expression to the new claim (not found in the shorter Chinese and Tibetan versions) that, because of the Buddha-dhatu, absolutely all beings without exception, even icchantikas (the most incorrigible and spiritually base of beings), will eventually attain liberation and become Buddhas.[37][38]

The Nirvana Sutra in Mahayana Schools

In the introduction to his translation of the Nirvana Sutra (Chinese: 大般涅盘经; Jyutping: da4ban1Nie4pan2jing1), Mark Blum speaks of the tremendous importance of this sutra for East-Asian Buddhism:

It would be difficult to overstate the impact of [the] Nirvana Sutra in East Asian Buddhism. Not only did it inspire numerous commentaries on the sutra itself in China, Korea, and Japan, it is cited extensively in the works of untold numbers of Buddhist writers and frequently appears in 'secular' literature as well [...] the very idea of Chan [Buddhism] without the concept of buddha-nature is unthinkable.[2]


There is one story in the Nirvana Sutra about a blind man feeling an elephant (Chinese: 盲人摸象; Jyutping: maang4yaan4mok3cheung6). The elephant in this tale symbolizes the "Buddha nature". A group of blind men reach touch a different part of the elephant—one feels the tusk and thinks it is a carrot, another mistakes the elephant's belly for an urn, and so on. The king seeks that Shakyamuni illuminate their limited perception (symbolized by blindness in the parable) that permits only partial truths.[39]

Nichiren Buddhism

In Nichiren Buddhism the Nirvana Sutra, with the Lotus Sutra, make up what Tiantai called the Fifth of the Five Periods of Teaching.[40] The Nirvana Sutra is seen as inferior to the Lotus Sutra however, based on the passage in Nichiren´s writings that reads:

When this sutra was preached . . . the prediction had already been made in the Lotus Sutra that the eight thousand voice-hearers would attain Buddhahood, a prediction that was like a great harvest. Thus, the autumn harvest was over and the crop had been stored away for winter [when the Nirvana Sutra was expounded], and there was nothing left for it [but a few gleanings]."[41]


Shin Buddhism

The Nirvana Sutra is among the most important sources and influences on Shinran's magnum opus, Kyogyoshinsho, which is the foundational text of the Japanese Jōdo Shinshū Pure Land School. Shinran relies on crucial passages from the Nirvana Sutra for the more theoretical elaboration of the meaning of shinjin. The Nirvana Sutra and the Pure Land Sutras are quoted extensively in the Kyogyoshinsho.

See also

• Anunatva-Apurnatva-Nirdesa
• Ātman (Buddhism)
• Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen
• Faith in Buddhism
• God in Buddhism
• Kulayarāja Tantra
• Parinirvana
• Mahāyāna sūtras
• Nirvana (Buddhism)
• Shinjō Itō, founder of the Shinnyo-en school of Buddhism
• Śrīmālādevī Siṃhanāda Sūtra
• Buddha-nature
• Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra

Notes

1. It shares its title with another well-known Buddhist scripture, the Mahaparinibbana Sutta of the Pāli Canon, but is quite different in form and content. It is therefore generally referred to by its full Sanskrit title, Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, or more commonly simply the Nirvāṇa Sūtra.
2. T 376.12.853-899
3. T 374.12.365c-603c
4. T 375.12.605-852
5. Corresponding to the Tibetan translation, the six juan Chinese translation attributed to Faxian, and the first ten juan of the Dharmakṣema Chinese translation.
6. In his account of Eminent Monks who Went West in Search of the Dharma, 大唐西域求法高僧傳 T2066. He travelled widely through India and parts of Southeast Asia over a 25-year period.
7. Qualified by Stephen Hodge as a "sadly unreliable, though pioneering, attempt".[20]
8. Buddha-dhatu (佛性), Buddha element, or Buddha principle; also "the nature of the Buddha", that what constitutes a Buddha.[22]
References[edit]
1. "myang 'das kyi mdo". Dharma Dictionary. Retrieved 29 January 2008.
2. Blum 2013, p. xix.
3. Hodge 2004.
4. Jikido 2000, p. 73.
5. Sasaki 1999.
6. Wang, Bangwei (1993). "The Transmission of the Mahāyāna Mahāparinivāṇa-sūtra ( 略論大乘《大般涅槃經》的傳譯定)". Chung-Hwa Buddhist Journal. 06: 103–127. Archived from the original on October 15, 2006.
7. Chen[year missing]
8. Shimoda 1997, pp. 446–48.
9. Hodge 2006.
10. Chen 1993 p103-5[full citation needed]
11. Matsuda 1988, p. 5.
12. Shimoda 1997, p. 156.
13. Shimoda 1997, p. 157.
14. Chen 2004.
15. Matsuda 1988, pp. 12–13.
16. Shimoda 1997.
17. Chen 2004, pp. 221–2.
18. Matsuda 1988.
19. Shimoda 1997, pp. 163–4.
20. Hodge 2012, p. 2.
21. King 1991, p. 14.
22. Liu 1982, p. 66-67.
23. Williams 2002, pp. 163-164.
24. Gethin 1998, p. 52.
25. Blum 2013, p. xv-xx.
26. Liu 1982, p. 66.
27. Yamamoto 1975, p. 107–108.
28. see Ruegg 1989a: 21-6[full citation needed]
29. Paul Williams, Mahayana Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations, 2nd edition, Routledge, London and New York, 2009, pp. 108-109
30. Mark L. Blum, The Nirvana Sutra, BDK Berkeley, California, 2013, pp. xvi-xvii
31. Blum 2013, p. xv.
32. Yamamoto 1975.
33. King 1991, p. 4.
34. King 1991, p. 48.
35. Yamamoto 1975, p. 94–96.
36. Yamamoto 1975, p. 87.
37. Yamamoto 1975, p. 153–154.
38. Liu 1984, p. 71-72.
39. Berger, Patricia Ann (1994). Latter Days of the Law: Images of Chinese Buddhism, 850 - 1850. University of Hawaii Press. p. 405. ISBN 0824816625. Retrieved 6 August 2019.
40. "Soka Gakkai Dictionary of Buddhism, T'ien-T'ai". Archived from the original on 2014-05-30. Retrieved 2011-09-03.
41. Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, Soka Gakkai, Volume 1 P693.

Sources

• Blum, Mark L. (2013), The Nirvana Sutra, Vol. 1 (PDF), BDK America
• Chen, Jinhua (2004), The Indian Buddhist Missionary Dharmakṣema (385-433): A New dating of his Arrival in Guzang and of his Translations, T'oung Pao 90, 215–263
• Hodge, Stephen (2004), Textual History of the Mahāyāna-mahāparinirvāna-sūtra, retrieved 21 January 2012
• Hodge, Stephen (2006), On the Eschatology of the Mahaparinirvana Sutra and Related Matters (PDF), lecture delivered at the University of London, SOAS, archived from the original (PDF) on June 14, 2013
• Hodge, Stephen (2012), The Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra. The text & its Transmission (PDF), corrected and revised version of a paper presented in July 2010 at the Second International Workshop on the Mahaparinirvana Sutra held at Munich University, archived from the original (PDF) on December 19, 2013
• Jikido, Takasaki (2000), "The Tathagatagarbha Theory Reconsidered. Reflections on Some Recent Issues in Japanese Buddhist Studies", Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 27 (1–2): 73–83, archived from the original on July 27, 2014
• King, Sallie B. (1991), Buddha Nature, SUNY Press
• Liu, Ming-Wood (1982), "The Doctrine of the Buddha-Nature in the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra.", Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, 5 (2): 63–94, archived from the original on October 16, 2013
• Liu, Ming-Wood (1984), "The Problem of the Icchantica in the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra", Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, 7 (1): 57–82
• Liu, Ming-Wood (2005), "The Doctrine of Buddha-nature in the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra", Buddhism: Critical Concepts in Religious Studies (Vol. V), Paul Williams, Taylor & Francis, p. 190
• Matsuda, Kazunobu (1988). "Sanskrit Fragments of the Mahāyāna Mahāparinivāṇa-sūtra. A Study of the Central Asian Documents of the Stein/Hoernle Collection of the India Office Library". Studia Tibetica. 14.
• Sasaki, Shizuka (1999), "Review Article: The Mahaparinirvana Sutra and the Origins of Mahayana Buddhism" (PDF), Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 26 (1–2): 189–197, archived from the original (PDF) on August 11, 2011, retrieved 21 January 2012
• Shimoda, Masahiro (1997). A Study of the Mahāparinivāṇasūtra ~ with a Focus on the Methodology of the Study of Mahāyāna Sūtras. Tokyo, Shunjū-sha. (in Japanese)
• Yamamoto, Kosho (1975), Mahayanism: A Critical Exposition of the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra, Karinbunko

Further reading

• Blum, Mark (2003). Nirvana Sutra, in: Buswell, Robert E. ed., Encyclopedia of Buddhism, New York: Macmillan Reference Lib., pp. 605–606
• Bongard-Levin, G.M (1986). New Sanskrit fragments of the Mahāyāna Mahāparinivāṇa-sūtra: Central Asian manuscript collection, The International Institute for Buddhist Studies.
• Ito, Shinjo (2009). Shinjo: Reflections, Somerset Hall Press.
• Lai, Whalen (1982). Sinitic speculations on buddha-nature: The Nirvaana school (420-589), Philosophy East and West 32 (2), 135-149
• Radich, Michael (2015). The Mahāparinivāṇa-mahasūtra and the Emergence of Tathagatagarba Doctrine, Hamburg Buddhist Studies Vol. 5, Hamburg University Press
• Yuyama, Akira (1981). Sanskrit fragments of the Mahāyāna Mahāparinivāṇa-sūtra: Koyasan manuscript, The Reiyukai Library.

External links

• Tony Page's Nirvana Sutra website
• Revised translation of the Mahaparinirvana Sutra
• [permanent dead link] Digital Dictionary of Buddhism (log in with userID "guest")
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Vayu Purana
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 7/11/21

The Vayu Purana (Sanskrit: वायु पुराण, Vāyu Purāṇa) is a Sanskrit text and one of the eighteen major Puranas of Hinduism. Vayu Purana is mentioned in the manuscripts of the Mahabharata and other Hindu texts, which has led scholars to propose that the text is among the oldest in the Puranic genre.[1][2] [3] Vayu and Vayaviya Puranas do share a very large overlap in their structure and contents, possibly because they once were the same, but with continuous revisions over the centuries, the original text became two different texts, and the Vayaviya text came also to be known as the Brahmanda Purana.[4]

The Vayu Purana, according to the tradition and verses in other Puranas, contains 24,000 verses (shlokas).[5] However, the surviving manuscripts have about 12,000 verses.[6] The text was continuously revised over the centuries, and its extant manuscripts are very different.[7] Some manuscripts have four padas (parts) with 112 chapters, and some two khandas with 111 chapters.[7] Comparisons of the diverse manuscripts suggest that the following sections were slipped, in later centuries, into the more ancient Vayu Purana: chapters on geography and temples-related travel guides known as Mahatmya,[8] two chapters on castes and individual ashramas, three chapters on Dharma and penances, eleven chapters on purity and Sanskara (rite of passage) and a chapter on hell in after-life.[9]

The text is notable for the numerous references to it, in medieval era Indian literature,[10] likely links to inscriptions such as those found on the Mathura pillar and dated to 380 CE,[11] as well as being a source for carvings and reliefs such as those at the Elephanta Caves – a UNESCO world heritage site.[12]

History

The Vayu Purana is mentioned in chapter 3.191 of the Mahabharata, and section 1.7 of the Harivamsa, suggesting that the text existed in the first half of the 1st-millennium CE.[1][2] The 7th-century[13] Sanskrit prose writer Banabhatta refers to this work in his Kadambari and Harshacharita. In chapter 3 of the Harshacharita Banabhatta remarks that the Vayu Purana was read out to him in his native village.[14][15] Alberuni (973 -1048), the Persian scholar who visited and lived in northwest Indian subcontinent for many years in early 11th century, quoted from the version of Vayu Purana that existed during his visit.[16]

The various mentions of the Vayu Purana in other texts have led scholars to recognize it as one of the oldest.[1] The early 20th-century scholar Dikshitar, known for his dating proposals that push many texts as very ancient and well into 1st millennium BCE, stated that the Vayu Purana started to take shape around 350 BCE.[1] Later scholarship has proposed that the earliest version of the text is likely from the 300 to 500 CE period, and broadly agreed that it is among the oldest Puranas.[1][17]

The text, like all Puranas, has likely gone through revisions, additions and interpolations over its history. Rajendra Hazra, as well as other scholars, for example, consider Gaya-mahatmya, which is an embedded travel guide to Gaya, as a later addition. The Gaya-mahatmya replaced older sections of the Vayu Purana, sometime before the 15th century.[18][19] Vayu Purana, like all Puranas, has a complicated chronology. Dimmitt and van Buitenen state that each of the Puranas is encyclopedic in style, and it is difficult to ascertain when, where, why and by whom these were written:[20]

As they exist today, the Puranas are stratified literature. Each titled work consists of material that has grown by numerous accretions in successive historical eras. Thus no Purana has a single date of composition. (...) It is as if they were libraries to which new volumes have been continuously added, not necessarily at the end of the shelf, but randomly.

— Cornelia Dimmitt and J.A.B. van Buitenen, Classical Hindu Mythology: A Reader in the Sanskrit Puranas[20]
Editions and translations


The Asiatic Society, Calcutta published this text in two volumes in 1880 and 1888, as a part of their Bibliotheca Indica series. It was edited by Rajendralal Mitra. The Venkateshvara Press, Bombay edition was published in 1895. It was followed by the publication of another edition by the Anandashrama (Anandashrama Sanskrit Series 49), Poona. In 1910, the Vangavasi Press, Calcutta published an edition along with a Bengali translation by Panchanan Tarkaratna, the editor of the text.[21] In 1960 Motilal Banarsidass published an English translation as part of its Ancient Indian Traditions and Mythology series.[22]

Contents

The Yogin

The Yogin possesses these attributes,
Self-restraint,
Quiescence,
Truthfulness,
Sinlessness,
Silence,
Straightforwardness towards all,
Knowledge beyond simple perception,
Uprightness,
Composed in mind,
Absorbed in the Brahman,
Delighting in the Atman
Alert and pure.
Such are the ones who master Yoga.

—Vayu Purana 16.22-16.23[23]


The Vayu Purana exists in many versions, structured in different ways, For example:

• In the Anandashrama and Vangavasi editions, this text is divided into four padas (parts): Prakriya-pada (chapters 1–6), Anushanga-pada (chapters 7–64), Upodghata-pada (chapter 65–99) and Upasamhara-pada (chapters 100–112). The Gayamahatmya (chapters 105–112 in these editions), praising the Gaya tirtha in Magadha is not found in all the manuscripts of this work and also found separately as an independent work.[14]
• In the Asiatic Society and Venkateshvara Press editions, this text is divided into two parts: Prathamakhanda comprising 61 chapters and Dvitiyakhanda comprising 50 chapters. The chapters 1-6 of Prathamakhanda are titled Prakriya-pada and no title is provided for the chapters 7-61. The chapters 1-42 of Dvitiyakhanda are titled Anushanga-pada and the chapters 43-50 are the Gayamahatmya.[21]

The Vayu Purana discusses its theories of cosmology, genealogy of gods and kings of solar and lunar dynasties, mythology, geography, manvantaras [a cyclic period of time identifying the duration, reign, or age of a Manu, the progenitor of mankind. In each manvantara, seven Rishis, certain deities, an Indra, a Manu, and kings (sons of Manu) are created and perish. Each manvantara is distinguished by the Manu who rules/reigns over it ], the solar system and the movements of the celestial bodies.[14] In addition to these, the text has chapters which were inserted in the later centuries into the older version of the Vayu Purana, such as chapters 16-17 which discuss duties of the Varna (caste or class) and duties of a person during various Ashrama, chapter 18 which discusses penances for sannyasi (monks, yati), chapters 57–59 on dharma, chapters 73 to 83 on sanskaras (rites of passage), and chapter 101 on the theory of hell in after-life.[9]

The text shares a large number of verses with the Brahmanda Purana, and the two texts originated most likely from the same core text.[7] The comparison of the two texts and specifics within the texts suggests, states Hazra, that the split into two texts could not have happened before 400 CE.[9] The chapters which were slipped into the Vayu Purana are missing in many versions of Vayu and in Brahmananda manuscripts. Chapter 18 on penances for those in monastic life, was likely inserted before the 14th century.[24] The travel guide to Gaya, Bihar was likely inserted before the 15th-century, because the Gaya-mahatmya was referenced many times by the 15th-century Vacaspatimisra (not to be confused with 9th-century Advaita scholar of the same name).[19]

The text also contains chapters on music,[25] various shakhas of the Vedas, Pashupata-Yoga, and geographic Mahatmya (travel guides) particularly about Gaya in Bihar.[10] The Vayu Purana also features other topics such as those dealing with construction of mountain top Hindu temples.[26]

The Revakhanda of Vayu Purana since 1910 has been wrongly attributed to the Skanda Purana, says Juergen Neuss, but he adds that the manuscripts attest the Revakhanda containing 232 chapters belongs to the Vayu Purana and was wrongly included in the Skanda Purana by Veṅkateśvara Steam Press in 1910 and all publications of the Skanda after it. The one belonging to the Skanda Purana has 116 chapters.[27]

References

1. Rocher 1986, p. 245.
2. Winternitz 1922, p. 13.
3. Rocher 1986, pp. 31-33.
4. Rocher 1986, p. 244.
5. Winternitz 1922, p. 14.
6. Wilson 1864, p. xxxix.
7. Rocher 1986, pp. 243-244.
8. Glucklich 2008, p. 146, Quote: The earliest promotional works aimed at tourists from that era were called mahatmyas.
9. Hazra 1940, p. 15.
10. Rocher 1986, pp. 243-245.
11. Mark S. G. Dyczkowski (1988). The Canon of the Saivagama and the Kubjika: Tantras of the Western Kaula Tradition. State University of New York Press. pp. 144 with notes 87–88. ISBN 978-0-88706-494-4.
12. Collins 1988, p. 37, 49, 149-150.
13. Banabhatta Encyclopædia Britannica (2012)
14. Hazra, R.C. (1962). The Puranas in S. Radhakrishnan ed. The Cultural Heritage of India, Vol.II, Calcutta: The Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, ISBN 81-85843-03-1, pp.253–5
15. Winternitz 1922, p. 13 with footnote 10.
16. Winternitz 1922, p. 13 with footnote 11.
17. Collins 1988, p. 36.
18. Gietz 1992, p. 548 with note 3015.
19. Hazra 1940, p. 17.
20. Dimmitt & van Buitenen 2012, p. 5.
21. Rocher 1986, pp. 243–245.
22. Tagare, G.V. and Shastri, J.L (ed.) (1960) The Vāyu Purāṇa (2 volumes). Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. ISBN 9788120803329
23. Tagare, G.V. (1987), Vayu Purana Part 1, Motilal Banarsidass, ISBN 978-8120803329, page 112
24. Hazra 1940, p. 16.
25. Tagare, G.V. Vayu Purana, Vol 2, pages 666-671
26. Kramrisch 1976, p. 169 with footnote 97, Volume 1.
27. Jurgen Neuss, Oliver Hellwig, Revakhanda of the Vayupurana

Bibliography

• Gregory Bailey (2003). Arvind Sharma (ed.). The Study of Hinduism. University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 978-1-57003-449-7.
• Collins, Charles Dillard (1988). The Iconography and Ritual of Siva at Elephanta: On Life, Illumination, and Being. SUNY Press. ISBN 978-0-88706-773-0.
• Dalal, Rosen (2014), Hinduism: An Alphabetical Guide, Penguin, ISBN 978-8184752779
• Dimmitt, Cornelia; van Buitenen, J. A. B. (2012). Classical Hindu Mythology: A Reader in the Sanskrit Puranas. Temple University Press (1st Edition: 1977). ISBN 978-1-4399-0464-0.
• Gietz, K.P.; et al. (1992), Epic and Puranic Bibliography (Up to 1985) Annoted and with Indexes: Part I: A - R, Part II: S - Z, Indexes, Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, ISBN 978-3-447-03028-1
• Glucklich, Ariel (2008). The Strides of Vishnu : Hindu Culture in Historical Perspective: Hindu Culture in Historical Perspective. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-971825-2.
• Gonda, Jan, ed. (1986). A History of Indian Literature, Vol.II: Epics and Sanskrit religious literature, Fasc.3. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. ISBN 978-3447025225.
• Hazra, Rajendra Chandra (1940). Studies in the Puranic Records on Hindu Rites and Customs. Motilal Banarsidass (1987 Reprint). ISBN 978-81-208-0422-7.
• Kramrisch, Stella (1976), The Hindu Temple, Volume 1 & 2, Motilal Banarsidass, ISBN 81-208-0223-3
• Rocher, Ludo. "The Puranas". In Gonda (1986).
• Wilson, H. H. (1864). The Vishnu Purana: A System of Hindu Mythology and Tradition (Volume 1: Introduction, Book I). Read Country Books (reprinted in 2006). ISBN 1-84664-664-2.
• Winternitz, Maurice (1922). History of Indian Literature Vol 1 (Original in German, translated into English by VS Sarma, 1981). New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass (Reprint 2010). ISBN 978-8120802643.

External links

• Vayu Purana - English Translation by G.V.Tagare - Part 1
• Vayu Purana - English Translation by G.V.Tagare - Part 2
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

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Magadha-Vajji war
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 7/11/21



Magadha-Vajji War
Date: 484–468 BCE
Location: Modern-day Bihar, India
Result: Magadhan victory
Territorial changes: Magadhan annexation of Vajji confederacy
Belligerents: Haryanka dynasty of Magadh / Vajji confederacy led by the Licchavis
Commanders and leaders: Ajatashatru / Chetaka

The Magadha-Vajji War was a conflict between the Haryanka dynasty of Magadha and the neighbouring Vajji confederacy which was led by the Licchavis. The conflict is remembered in both Buddhist and Jain traditions. The conflict ended in defeat for the Vajji confederacy and the Magadhans annexing their territory.[1][2]


Conflict

There are differing accounts between the Jain and Buddhist traditions as to how the war played out although both sides agree that the Magahdans were victorious and ended up conquering the region.[1]

Buddhist tradition

According to the Buddhist tradition, there was a diamond mine near a village on the river Ganges. There was an agreement between Ajatashatru and the Licchavis of Vajji that they would have an equal share. However one day, Ajatashatru failed to collect his own share and the entire load were taken by the Vajjians. This happened on multiple occasions, and at last, Ajatashatru lost his patience and thought, "it is almost impossible to fight against the whole confederacy of Vaishali. I must uproot these powerful Vajjis and exterminate them". He sent his chief minister Vassakara to Buddha to ask him the purpose of Vaishali being invincible, to which Buddha gave seven reasons which included Vajjis being punctual to the meetings, their disciplined behaviour, their respect for elders, respect for women, they do not marry their daughters forcefully, they give spiritual protection to the Arhats, and the main reason was the Chaityas (altar) inside the town.[1][3]

Ajatashatru sent his chief minister Vassakara to infiltrate the Vajji confederacy and within three years he had managed to split the Vajjis and also demolished the altars in Vaishali. Ajatashatru used a scythed chariot with swinging mace and blades on both the sides and attacked the town and conquered it with little resistance.[1]

Part One: In Magadha

1. Thus have I heard. Once the Blessed One [1] dwelt at Rajagaha, on the hill called Vultures' Peak. At that time the king of Magadha, Ajatasattu, son of the Videhi queen, [2] desired to wage war against the Vajjis. He spoke in this fashion: "These Vajjis, powerful and glorious as they are, I shall annihilate them, I shall make them perish, I shall utterly destroy them."

2. And Ajatasattu, the king of Magadha, addressed his chief minister, the brahman Vassakara, saying: "Come, brahman, go to the Blessed One, pay homage in my name at his feet, wish him good health, strength, ease, vigour, and comfort, and speak thus: 'O Lord, Ajatasattu, the king of Magadha, desires to wage war against the Vajjis. He has spoken in this fashion: "These Vajjis, powerful and glorious as they are, I shall annihilate them, I shall make them perish, I shall utterly destroy them."' And whatever the Blessed One should answer you, keep it well in mind and inform me; for Tathagatas [3] do not speak falsely."

3. "Very well, sire," said the brahman Vassakara in assent to Ajatasattu, king of Magadha. And he ordered a large number of magnificent carriages to be made ready, mounted one himself, and accompanied by the rest, drove out to Rajagaha towards Vultures' Peak. He went by carriage as far as the carriage could go, then dismounting, he approached the Blessed One on foot. After exchanging courteous greetings with the Blessed One, together with many pleasant words, he sat down at one side and addressed the Blessed One thus: "Venerable Gotama, Ajatasattu, the king of Magadha, pays homage at the feet of the Venerable Gotama and wishes him good health, strength, ease, vigour, and comfort. He desires to wage war against the Vajjis, and he has spoken in this fashion: 'These Vajjis, powerful and glorious as they are, I shall annihilate them, I shall make them perish, I shall utterly destroy them.'"

Conditions of a Nation's Welfare

4. At that time the Venerable Ananda [4] was standing behind the Blessed One, fanning him, and the Blessed One addressed the Venerable Ananda thus: "What have you heard, Ananda: do the Vajjis have frequent gatherings, and are their meetings well attended?"

"I have heard, Lord, that this is so."

"So long, Ananda, as this is the case, the growth of the Vajjis is to be expected, not their decline.

"What have you heard, Ananda: do the Vajjis assemble and disperse peacefully and attend to their affairs in concord?"

"I have heard, Lord, that they do."

"So long, Ananda, as this is the case, the growth of the Vajjis is to be expected, not their decline.

"What have you heard, Ananda: do the Vajjis neither enact new decrees nor abolish existing ones, but proceed in accordance with their ancient constitutions?"

"I have heard, Lord, that they do."

"So long, Ananda, as this is the case, the growth of the Vajjis is to be expected, not their decline.

"What have you heard, Ananda: do the Vajjis show respect, honor, esteem, and veneration towards their elders and think it worthwhile to listen to them?"

"I have heard, Lord, that they do."

"So long, Ananda, as this is the case, the growth of the Vajjis is to be expected, not their decline.

"What have you heard, Ananda: do the Vajjis refrain from abducting women and maidens of good families and from detaining them?"

"I have heard, Lord, that they refrain from doing so."

"So long, Ananda, as this is the case, the growth of the Vajjis is to be expected, not their decline.

"What have you heard, Ananda: do the Vajjis show respect, honor, esteem, and veneration towards their shrines, both those within the city and those outside it, and do not deprive them of the due offerings as given and made to them formerly?"

"I have heard, Lord, that they do venerate their shrines, and that they do not deprive them of their offerings."

"So long, Ananda, as this is the case, the growth of the Vajjis is to be expected, not their decline.

"What have you heard, Ananda: do the Vajjis duly protect and guard the arahats, so that those who have not come to the realm yet might do so, and those who have already come might live there in peace?"

"I have heard, Lord, that they do."

"So long, Ananda, as this is the case, the growth of the Vajjis is to be expected, not their decline."

5. And the Blessed One addressed the brahman Vassakara in these words: "Once, brahman, I dwelt at Vesali, at the Sarandada shrine, and there it was that I taught the Vajjis these seven conditions leading to (a nation's) welfare. [5] So long, brahman, as these endure among the Vajjis, and the Vajjis are known for it, their growth is to be expected, not their decline."

Thereupon the brahman Vassakara spoke thus to the Blessed One: "If the Vajjis, Venerable Gotama, were endowed with only one or another of these conditions leading to welfare, their growth would have to be expected, not their decline. What then of all the seven? No harm, indeed, can be done to the Vajjis in battle by Magadha's king, Ajatasattu, except through treachery or discord. Well, then, Venerable Gotama, we will take our leave, for we have much to perform, much work to do."

"Do as now seems fit to you, brahman." And the brahman Vassakara, the chief minister of Magadha, approving of the Blessed One's words and delighted by them, rose from his seat and departed....

26. At that time Sunidha and Vassakara, the chief ministers of Magadha, were building a fortress at Pataligama in defense against the Vajjis. And deities in large numbers, counted in thousands, had taken possession of sites at Pataligama. In the region where deities of great power prevailed, officials of great power were bent on constructing edifices; and where deities of medium power and lesser power prevailed, officials of medium and lesser power were bent on constructing edifices.

27. And the Blessed One saw with the heavenly eye, pure and transcending the faculty of men, the deities, counted in thousands, where they had taken possession of sites in Pataligama. And rising before the night was spent, towards dawn, the Blessed One addressed the Venerable Ananda thus: "Who is it, Ananda, that is erecting a city at Pataligama?"

"Sunidha and Vassakara, Lord, the chief ministers of Magadha, are building a fortress at Pataligama, in defence against the Vajjis."

-- Maha-parinibbana Sutta: Last Days of the Buddha, translated from the Pali by Sister Vajira & Francis Story


Jain tradition

The Jain tradition has been pieced together from multiple sources and confirms many of the Buddhist accounts but also differs in many ways. Queen Padmavati, the wife of Ajatashatru while sitting on her balcony saw Halla and Vihalla kumaras with their wives sitting on an elephant and one of the wives was wearing the 18 fold divine necklace.[1]

She went to her husband Ajatashatru who requested both brothers to give the elephant and the necklace to him, which both brothers denied saying that these gifts were given by their father. Ajatashatru sent the request thrice but got the same reply all three times. In response he sent his men to arrest them however the two brothers escaped to their maternal grandfather Chetaka who was the king of Vajji and the leader of the Licchavi clan. Ajatashatru sent notice thrice to Chetaka to surrender them but was denied by Chetaka.[4] This was enough for Ajatashatru. He called his half-brothers, Kalakumaras (10 kalakumaras, those born to King Bimbisara and 10 Kali Queens Kali, Sukali, Mahakali, etc.) to merge their army with his. As he could not possibly hope to defeat the Vajjians without their help. On the other hand, Chetaka invited his own allies; 9 Mallas, 9 Lichhavis and 18 kings of Kasi-Kosala to fight Ajatashatru.[2]

As the war began, King Chetaka, who was a devout follower of Mahavira, had a vow to not shoot more than one arrow per day in a war. It was known to all that Chetaka's aim was perfect and his arrows were infallible. His first arrow killed one commander of Ajatashatru's. On the following nine days, the rest of the nine commanders were killed by Chetaka.


According to legend, as Ajatashatru was moving towards defeat he practised penance for three days and offered prayers to Indra to help him achieve victory. In the following battle, the Vajjians were defeated and the Licchavis were abandoned by the other confederate tribes so they took shelter inside the city walls of Vaishali and closed the main gate. The walls around Vaishali were so strong that Ajatashatru was unable to break through them. Eventually, they succeeded in breaching the walls and conquering Vaishali and the surrounding region.[1]

Role of the Buddha

According to the account that is given in the Mahāparinibbāṇa Sutta in the Buddhist tradition, the Buddha advised Vassakāra of the seven conditions of welfare which would ensure the prosperity of Vajji. Vassakara inferred from this the way to defeat the Vajjis. There is a debate as to whether the Buddha did this intentionally.[2][5]

See also

• Avanti-Magadhan Wars

References

1. A. L Basham (1951). "Ajātasattu's War with the Licchavis". Proceedings of the Indian History Congress. 14: 37–41. JSTOR 44303932.

2. Pandita, Ven (2011). "The Buddha and the Māgadha-Vajjī War". Journal of Buddhist Ethics. 18: 126–144. Retrieved 2 August 2020.
3. James A. Benn; Lori Meeks; James Robson (10 September 2009). Buddhist Monasticism in East Asia: Places of Practice. Routledge. pp. 20–. ISBN 978-1-134-00991-6.
4. Upinder Singh (2008). A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century. Pearson Education India. pp. 260–263. ISBN 978-81-317-1677-9.
5. Chakrabarti, Dilip (1995). "Buddhist sites across South Asia as influenced by political and economic forces". World Archaeology. 27 (2): 185–202. doi:10.1080/00438243.1995.9980303.
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

Postby admin » Mon Jul 12, 2021 3:55 am

Ajatasattu's War With the Licchavis
by A.L. Basham
Proceedings of the Indian History Congress
Vol. 14, pp. 37-41
1951
In the light of these researches, peering down the dark vistas of the past, we see that at the time of Buddha's visit, referred to in the above-quoted lines, — that is, somewhere between the fourth and fifth centuries before our era — Pataliputra was a small village on the south bank of the Ganges, and it was being fortified by the king of Rajagrha (Rajgir) as a post from which he might conquer the adjoining provinces and petty republics across the river.

Standing at a point of such great commercial and strategical importance, at or near the confluence of all the five great rivers of Mid-India, namely, the Ganges, the Gogra, the Rapti, the Gandak, and the Son, as seen in the accompanying map, and commanding the traffic of these great water-ways of the richest part of India, it quickly grew into a great city, as was predicted.

Within about one generation after Buddha's visit the new monarch left the old stronghold of Rajgir, on the eastern edge of the highlands of Central India, overlooking the rich Ganges Valley, and one of the hilly fastnesses to which the vigorous invading Aryans fondly clung, and transferred his seat of government out to the new city in the centre of the plain. Thus when the conquest of all the adjoining and upper provinces welded India for the first time into one great dominion, Pataliputra became the capital of that vast empire.

-- Report on the Excavations At Pataliputra (Patna): The Palibothra of the Greeks, by L.A. Waddell

Mahaparinibbana-Sutta...

Reasons have been advanced by the translator of the Mahaparinibanna-Sutta for holding that the work cannot well have been composed very much later than the fourth century B.C. And, in the other direction, he has claimed that substantially, as to not only ideas but also words, it can be dated approximately in the fifth century. That would tend to place the composition of its narrative within eight decades after the death of Buddha, for which event B.C. 482 seems to me the most probable and satisfactory date that we are likely to obtain. In view, however, of a certain prophecy which is placed by the Sutta in the mouth of Buddha, it does not appear likely that the work can be referred to quite so early a time as that.

In the course of his last journey, Buddha came to the village Pataligama. At that time, we know from the commencement of the work, there was war, or a prospect of war, between Ajatasatta, king of Magadha, and the Vajji people. And, when Buddha was on this occasion at Pataligama, Sunidha and Vassakara, the Mahamattas or high ministers for Magadha, were laying out a regular city (nagara) at Pataligama, in order to ward off the Vajjis. The place was haunted by many thousands of “fairies” (devata), who inhabited the plots of ground there. And it was by that spiritual influence that Sunidha and Vassakara had been led to select the site for the foundation of a city; the text says: “Wherever ground is so occupied by powerful fairies, they bend the hearts of the most powerful kings and ministers to build dwelling-places there, and fairies of middling and inferior power bend in a similar way the hearts of middling or inferior kings and ministers.” Buddha with his supernatural clear sight beheld the fairies. And, remarking to his companion, the venerable Ananda, that Sunidha and Vassakara were acting just as if they had taken counsel with the Tavatimsa “angels” (deva), he said: -- “Inasmuch, O Ananda!, as it is an honourable place as well as a resort of merchants, this shall become a leading city, Pataliputta, a great trading centre; but, O Ananda!, three dangers will befall Pataliputta, either from fire, or from water, or from dissension.”

-- The Tradition about the Corporeal Relics of Buddha, by J. F. Fleet, The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, (Jul., 1906), pp. 655-671 (17 pages)

In Magadha

1. Thus have I heard. Once the Blessed One dwelt at Rajagaha, on the hill called Vultures' Peak. At that time the king of Magadha, Ajatasattu, son of the Videhi queen, desired to wage war against the Vajjis. He spoke in this fashion: "These Vajjis, powerful and glorious as they are, I shall annihilate them, I shall make them perish, I shall utterly destroy them."

2. And Ajatasattu, the king of Magadha, addressed his chief minister, the brahman Vassakara, saying: "Come, brahman, go to the Blessed One, pay homage in my name at his feet, wish him good health, strength, ease, vigour, and comfort, and speak thus: 'O Lord, Ajatasattu, the king of Magadha, desires to wage war against the Vajjis. He has spoken in this fashion: "These Vajjis, powerful and glorious as they are, I shall annihilate them, I shall make them perish, I shall utterly destroy them."' And whatever the Blessed One should answer you, keep it well in mind and inform me; for Tathagatas do not speak falsely."

3. "Very well, sire," said the brahman Vassakara in assent to Ajatasattu, king of Magadha. And he ordered a large number of magnificent carriages to be made ready, mounted one himself, and accompanied by the rest, drove out to Rajagaha towards Vultures' Peak. He went by carriage as far as the carriage could go, then dismounting, he approached the Blessed One on foot. After exchanging courteous greetings with the Blessed One, together with many pleasant words, he sat down at one side and addressed the Blessed One thus: "Venerable Gotama, Ajatasattu, the king of Magadha, pays homage at the feet of the Venerable Gotama and wishes him good health, strength, ease, vigour, and comfort. He desires to wage war against the Vajjis, and he has spoken in this fashion: 'These Vajjis, powerful and glorious as they are, I shall annihilate them, I shall make them perish, I shall utterly destroy them.'"

Conditions of a Nation's Welfare

4. At that time the Venerable Ananda was standing behind the Blessed One, fanning him, and the Blessed One addressed the Venerable Ananda thus: "What have you heard, Ananda: do the Vajjis have frequent gatherings, and are their meetings well attended?"

"I have heard, Lord, that this is so."

"So long, Ananda, as this is the case, the growth of the Vajjis is to be expected, not their decline.

"What have you heard, Ananda: do the Vajjis assemble and disperse peacefully and attend to their affairs in concord?"

"I have heard, Lord, that they do."

"So long, Ananda, as this is the case, the growth of the Vajjis is to be expected, not their decline.

"What have you heard, Ananda: do the Vajjis neither enact new decrees nor abolish existing ones, but proceed in accordance with their ancient constitutions?"

"I have heard, Lord, that they do."

"So long, Ananda, as this is the case, the growth of the Vajjis is to be expected, not their decline.

"What have you heard, Ananda: do the Vajjis show respect, honor, esteem, and veneration towards their elders and think it worthwhile to listen to them?"

"I have heard, Lord, that they do."

"So long, Ananda, as this is the case, the growth of the Vajjis is to be expected, not their decline.

"What have you heard, Ananda: do the Vajjis refrain from abducting women and maidens of good families and from detaining them?"

"I have heard, Lord, that they refrain from doing so."

"So long, Ananda, as this is the case, the growth of the Vajjis is to be expected, not their decline.

"What have you heard, Ananda: do the Vajjis show respect, honor, esteem, and veneration towards their shrines, both those within the city and those outside it, and do not deprive them of the due offerings as given and made to them formerly?"

"I have heard, Lord, that they do venerate their shrines, and that they do not deprive them of their offerings."

"So long, Ananda, as this is the case, the growth of the Vajjis is to be expected, not their decline.

"What have you heard, Ananda: do the Vajjis duly protect and guard the arahats, so that those who have not come to the realm yet might do so, and those who have already come might live there in peace?"

"I have heard, Lord, that they do."

"So long, Ananda, as this is the case, the growth of the Vajjis is to be expected, not their decline."

5. And the Blessed One addressed the brahman Vassakara in these words: "Once, brahman, I dwelt at Vesali, at the Sarandada shrine, and there it was that I taught the Vajjis these seven conditions leading to (a nation's) welfare. So long, brahman, as these endure among the Vajjis, and the Vajjis are known for it, their growth is to be expected, not their decline."

Thereupon the brahman Vassakara spoke thus to the Blessed One: "If the Vajjis, Venerable Gotama, were endowed with only one or another of these conditions leading to welfare, their growth would have to be expected, not their decline. What then of all the seven? No harm, indeed, can be done to the Vajjis in battle by Magadha's king, Ajatasattu, except through treachery or discord. Well, then, Venerable Gotama, we will take our leave, for we have much to perform, much work to do."

"Do as now seems fit to you, brahman." And the brahman Vassakara, the chief minister of Magadha, approving of the Blessed One's words and delighted by them, rose from his seat and departed....

26. At that time Sunidha and Vassakara, the chief ministers of Magadha, were building a fortress at Pataligama in defense against the Vajjis. And deities in large numbers, counted in thousands, had taken possession of sites at Pataligama. In the region where deities of great power prevailed, officials of great power were bent on constructing edifices; and where deities of medium power and lesser power prevailed, officials of medium and lesser power were bent on constructing edifices.

27. And the Blessed One saw with the heavenly eye, pure and transcending the faculty of men, the deities, counted in thousands, where they had taken possession of sites in Pataligama. And rising before the night was spent, towards dawn, the Blessed One addressed the Venerable Ananda thus: "Who is it, Ananda, that is erecting a city at Pataligama?"

"Sunidha and Vassakara, Lord, the chief ministers of Magadha, are building a fortress at Pataligama, in defence against the Vajjis."

-- Maha-parinibbana Sutta: Last Days of the Buddha, translated from the Pali by Sister Vajira & Francis Story

The Magadha-Vajji War was a conflict between the Haryanka dynasty of Magadha and the neighbouring Vajji confederacy which was led by the Licchavis. The conflict is remembered in both Buddhist and Jain traditions. The conflict ended in defeat for the Vajji confederacy and the Magadhans annexing their territory.

There are differing accounts between the Jain and Buddhist traditions as to how the war played out although both sides agree that the Magahdans were victorious and ended up conquering the region.


-- Magadha-Vajji war, by Wikipedia

Image
Daffy Duck: "This is preposterous"
Contamination, in manuscript tradition, a blending whereby a single manuscript contains readings originating from different sources or different lines of tradition. In literature, contamination refers to a blending of legends or stories that results in new combinations of incident or in modifications of plot.

-- Contamination: Literature, by Encyclopedia Britannica

NOTE -- From considerations of time and space I have not given references to many of the better known facts. All are to be found in such well known works of reference as Dr. Malalasekera's Dictionary of Pali Proper Names and Dr. H.C. Raychaudhuri's Political History of Ancient India.

The war between the king of Magadha Ajatasattu and the confederacy of the Vajjis, of which the most important element was the tribe of the Licchavis of Vesali, must have made a great impression upon contemporary India, for it is remembered and described in some detail by the independent traditions both of the Buddhists and the Jains. It is scarcely necessary to summarise the Buddhist account, but we will do so for the sake of completeness. The story occurs in the Mahiparinibbana Sutta of the Digha Nikiya, and in Buddhaghosa's commentary thereon.

A certain river port half in Magadhan territory and half in that of the Vajjis, produced a mysterious scented substance which was much in demand. Ajatasattu claimed this stuff, but when be sent his men for it on one occasion he found that the Vajjis had anticipated him and had taken it all.1 [Sumangala Vilasini, ii, 516.] He vowed to extirpate the Vajjis root and branch, and his chief minister Vassakara went to the Buddha to enquire whether the project was feasible. This was the occasion of the famous pronouncement of the Buddha, which seems to me to bear every sign of being authentic -- as long as the Vajjis held together, had regular folk-moots, revered the ancestral shrines and respected their women they were invincible. These are evidently the words of one who had a great love for the more or less democratic constitution of the so-called republican tribes and deplored the passing of traditional virtues. Soon after his interview with Vassakara, Buddha went north on his last journey. As he crossed the Ganges with his followers he again met Vassakara, with another minister named Sunidha, supervising the construction of a fort at the village of Pataligama, and prophesied the future greatness of the site.2 [Digha Nikaya, ii. 72 ff.] Meanwhile Vassakara, thought of a scheme to weaken the Vajjis. He pretended to quarrel with Ajatasattu, and fled to Vesali in the guise of a refuge. He was given a position of trust in the council of the tribal chieftains, and made use of the position to sow discord among them. In this he was so successful that in three years they were completely divided among themselves. Then Vassakara sent a message to Ajatasattu that the time was ripe, and he occupied Veslali with very little fighting.3 [Sumangala Vilasini, ii, 522.]

The Jain story, like the Buddhist, has to be pieced together from various sources. In this summary I retain the Buddhist names of the kings of Magadha for convenience. There is of course no shadow of doubt that the Seniya and Kuniya of the Jains are the Bimbisara and Ajatasattu of the Pali scriptures. Bimbisara, according to the Nirayavalika Sutra, committed suicide in prison in order to save his usurping son of the sin of patricide. This story virtually confirms the Buddhist account of Ajatasattu's murder of his father. But even before his father's death the new king had repented of his evil courses. On hearing of the suicide he moved his court to Campa. But soon after he was again inspired to evil by a wicked queen, called by the common Jaina name of Padmavati. His younger brothers Halla and Vehalla possessed a splendid elephant and a wonderful jewelled necklace. These the queen coveted, and persuaded Ajatasattu to demand them. The princes, rather than give them up, fled to the court of their maternal grandfather Cetaka, the chieftain of the Licchavis of Vesali. Ajatasattu sent to Cetaka to demand the treasures. When they were refused he made war on the Licchavis and the Nirayavalika speaks of a great battle in which many of Ajatasattu's brothers were killed.4 [Nirayavalika Sutra, ed. A.S. Gopani and V.J. Chokshi, Ahmedabad, 1935, p. 19 ff.]

The story is continued by the Bhagavati Sutra, which speaks of two great battles. The first lasted ten days, and on each day the Magadhan army lost one of its generals, shot by Cetaka. On the eleventh day Ajatasattu threw in a secret weapon, presented to him by the god Indra himself -- a mahasilakantaka, which from its description seems to have been a great stone- thrower. This turned the scales. The second battle had a similar course, and Ajatasattu's fortunes were turned in the nick of time by another wonderful weapon, a chariot-club (ralthamusala), which caused great carnage.5 [Bhagavati Sutra, 3 vols., Bombay, 1918-21, sutra 299 ff.]

The story is carried yet further by the early medieval commentator Jinadasa Gani in his curni, to the Avasyaka Sutra. The ruling body of the confederacy, described here and elsewhere in the Jaina scriptures as the nine Licchavis, the nine Mallakis and the eighteen tribal chieftains (ganaraja) of Kasi and Kosala, broke up. The confederate chieftains went home, and Cetaka, forced to fight alone, retreated to Vesali, where he was besieged for twelve years. The Licchavis had [i]a living palladium
in Kulapalaka, a famous ascetic whose piety and austerities rendered the city impregnable. But Ajatasattu lured him to break his vows by means of a beautiful prostitute, and so the city fell. Cetaka drowned himself in a well and the remnant of the Licchavis fled to Nepal.6 [Avasyaka Sutra with curni of Jinadasa Gani, 2 vols., Ratlam, 1928-9; vol. ii, p. 172 ff.]

The story, which is told very elliptically by Jinadasa, is expanded in a commentary to the Uttaradhyayana Siltra quoted in the Jain encyclopedia Abhidhana Rajendra.7 [Abhidhana Rajendra, vol. iii s.v. Kulavalaya.]

The two versions disagree in many important details, but certain facts are in agreement and it is possible to extract credible history from them. The Jaina account of a long and difficult war is indirectly confirmed by the Buddhist story. The result of the war was clearly much in doubt when Ajatasattu sent Vassakara to the Buddha to enquire as to his prospects of success. The fort on the Ganges was built specifically for defence and not attack. In the fragmentary opening paragraph of the Sarvastivadin Sanskrit version of the Mahaparinibbina Sutta, recently published by Prof. Waldschmidt, Ajatasattu uses the words vyasanam, disaster, and rddhams ca sphi(tam), rich and prosperous, in his rage against the Vajjis.8 [Berlin, 1950, p. 7.] The easy victory superficially indicated by the Buddhist story was evidently preceded by a period of protracted and difficult warfare.

The enemy of Ajatasattu was not a single one, but a confederation.
The Vajjis of the Pali scriptures are explicitly stated to be such a confederation, but the phrase used by the Jains 'the nine Licchavis, the nine Mallakis, and the eighteen tribal chieftains of Kasi and Kosala', suggest a wider alliance than that of the eight local tribes under the leadership of the Licchavis who comprised the Vajjian confederation. This phrase has attracted the attention of Prof. H. C. Raychaudhuri, who suggests 'that all the enemies of Ajatasattu, including the rulers of Kasi-Kosala and Vaisali, offered combined resistance. The Kosalan war and the Vajjian war were probably not isolated events but parts of a common movement directed against the hegemony of Magadha'.9 [Political History of Ancient India, 5th edn., Calcutta 1950, p. 213.] The Kosalan war, that between Ajatasattu and his uncle Pasenadi of Kosala immediately on the former 's usurpation, is less well attested than that with the Vajjis, since it is mentioned in the Buddhist tradition only.10 [Samyutta Nikaya, tr., i., 109.] But the evidence of that tradition points to the fact that peace had been concluded between the two sides, and Pasenadi had been succeeded by his son Vidudabha and had died, before the war with the Vajjis. Raychaudhure's hypothesis does not explain how Kasi and Kosala, both of which had been controlled by Pasenadi, came to be ruled by eighteen tribal chieftains. For this reason it is difficult of acceptance as it stands. Even more improbable is a theory once suggested by Prof. B. M. Barua,11 [Indian Culture, ii. 810.] that the whole of the Kosalan kingdom was under the suzerainty of the Licchavis; this is contradicted by the whole of the Buddhist tradition and need not be considered further.

A possible explanation of the eighteen ganarajas of Kasi and Kosala would link them with Vidudabha's devastation of the Sakiyas, and his death soon afterwards. The motive given for Vidudabha's wanton attack on the tribe, that he was incensed at their duplicity in providing his father with a base born girl all a bride, is too fantastic to be easily credible. It may well be that the only motive of the new and ambitious king of Kosala was the desire to impose a tighter and more centralized control on the feudatory tribes to the north and east of his kingdom. But whatever his motive, such an attack might be expected to rouse the suspicion and hostility of other tribes tributory to Kosala, of which the Mallas were one. We have no reliable account of the fate of Vidudabha, but the Pali story that he was drowned immediately after his destruction of the Sakiyas12 [Dhammapada Commentary, i, 346 ff. 357 ff.] indicates at least that he did not long survive that event. It may well be that he was killed while trying to subdue other subordinate tribes in the eastern part of his kingdom. We suggest that these tribes, unwilling to accept Vidudaha's suzerainty and incensed at his destruction of the Sakiyas, took advantage of his death to throw off all allegiance, and allied themselves with the strongest tribal republic of the region, the Vajjis or Licchavis of Vesali.

Of the names given in the Jaina formula the nine Licchavis need no further definition. They are the chiefs of the Vajjian confederacy of the Pali scriptures. The nine Mallakis must surely be the Mallas, probably the most important of the Kosalan tribes formerly tributory to Pasenadi. The eighteen tribal chieftains of Kasi and Kosala are probably the leaders of lesser tribes, originally included within the Kosalan empire. We would agree with Raychaudhuri to this extent, that the accounts give evidence of a widespread league of the tribal peoples north of the Ganges, no doubt uneasy at the growing imperialist ambition of the new rulers of Kosala and Magadha, and determined to preserve their own constitutions and way of life, which they saw were seriously threatened.

It is perhaps possible to trace a definite general policy followed throughout the reigns of Bimbisara and Ajatasattu, of which the Vajjian war was one phase. When Alexander reached the Seas he was told that all the Ganges-Yamuna basin was in the hands of a single king, Agrammes. The expansion of Magadha at the time of the Buddha was the first stage of the process which led to the empire of Asoka. It is hardly likely that Bimbisara and Ajatasattu ever visualized so mighty an empire, but they may have had the more liited objective of gaining control of as much of the Ganges river system as possible. It may be possible to trace the same objective later, motivating the campaigns of Samudra Gupta, Sasanka, and Dharmapala -- the king in possession of the lower course aiming at control of the whole river system. The importance of the rivers, in an India where population was smaller, roads were bad, and jungle more widespread, need hardly be emphasized.

Bimbisara's one annexation was Anga, with its wealthy river port of Campa, where, if we are to believe the Pali accounts, an already flourishing trade with the south brought gold jewels and spices. Campa must have served as an entrepot, from which southern luxury goods were distributed all over northern India. The acquisition of Amga was perhaps a necessary preliminary to the further expansion of Magadha, providing the wealth with which Bimbisara financed his policy of internal consolidation and Ajatasattu his aggressive wars. Of these the war with Kosala seems to have given Magadha control of a further length of the river, while from the war with the Vajjis she gained a foothold north of the Ganges, and thus controlled both banks. It is perhaps significant that according to the Buddhist story the latter war arose over a dispute in a river port which was half controlled by Ajatasattu and half by the Vajjis.

Both in internal and external policy Magadha under Bimbisra and Ajatasattu seems to have transcended earlier Indian conceptions of statecraft. It is possible, and I believe reasonably probable, that some inspiration for these new developments in ancient Indian polity came from the west. It may be more than a coincidence that while Bimbisara was a young man Cyrus was building up the greatest empire the world had yet seen. Before Ajatasattu's usurpation Achaemenid power extended to the Indus, if not beyond, and Taksasila seems to have been annexed. Bimbisara had been in diplomatic contact with Pukkusati, the king of Takasila. A busy caravan route led from Magadha to the north-west, and young men of the two upper classes would go from the Ganges valley to Taksasila to finish their education. It seems very unlikely that the two energetic king of Magadha should have been unaware of what was happening on the north-western borders of India. With the increased wealth at their disposal as a result of their control of trade at the eastern gate of Aryan India they may well have been inspired in their policy of expansion by what they heard of Persian affairs.

One further point deserves consideration -- the wonderful weapons with which, according to the Jain story, Ajatasattu successfully decided his two battles with Licchavis. The 'mahasilakantaka' evidently suggests a catapult, and the 'rathamusala' a battering ram. In the acceptance of the historicity of the latter weapon there is no difficulty once allowance has been made for the exaggerations to which Jain writers were so inclined. The catapult is more difficult however. Battering rams, siege towers, and other large war-engines were used by the Babylonians and Persians, and there is no reason why Ajatasattu should not also have used them. But we have no record of the use of war-engines for the discharge of large missiles in Asia until the days of Alexander, with one dubious exception. The exception occurs in the Old Testament, in the 2nd Book of Chronicles (xxvi, 15), where it is stated that king Uzziah of Judah, in the 7th century B.C., defended Jerusalem with engines which discharged great stones. If it could be shown that some form of catapult was even occasionally used in the Middle East the acceptance of Ajatasattu's mahasilakantaka would be much easier. But the Book of Chronicles is generally thought to have been compiled at a comparatively late date, and Professor Sidney Smith, with whom I have discussed the matter, believes that Uzziah's catapults are almost certainly the false attribution of a much later writer, to whom catapults were familiar. I am assured by Prof. Henning that there is no record of their being used by the Achaemenids.

This being the case we must either believe that catapults were invented independently in India at about the time of Ajatasattu, or that the wonderful weapon described by the Jain commentator is also a false attribution. On the strength of this one late reference I find it hard to accept the former alternative. The Jaina story, read in conjunction with Pali references, may, however, be taken to indicate that as in civil so in military affairs the Magadha of Bimbisara and Ajatasattu outstripped its contemporaries. The foundation was laid by the peaceful Bimbisara and the aggressive Ajatasattu of the first united India, and the fact that Bharat at the present day is a single republic and not an aggregate of warring petty states must in some measure be ultimately due to the progressive policies of these two energetic kings of 2,500 years ago.
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XXIV. The Tradition About the Corporeal Relics of Buddha
by J. F. FLEET, I.C.S. (Retd.), Ph.D., C.I.E.
The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland
P. 655-671
1906



I.

By way of a preliminary to some further remarks on the inscription on the Piprahava relic-vase,1 [I have been using hitherto the form Piprawa, which I took over from another writer. But it appears, from Major Vost’s article on Kapilavastu (page 553 ff. above), that the correct form of the name is that which I now adopt.] which I shall present when a facsimile of the record can be given with them, I offer a study of an interesting side-issue, the tradition regarding the corporeal relics of Buddha.

The subject has been touched by another writer in this Journal, 1901. 397 ff. And I am indebted to his article for (in addition to some minor references) guidance to the story told in Buddhaghosha’s Sumangalavilasini, which otherwise might have remained unknown to me. For the rest, however, that treatment of the subject was biassed by starting with the postulate that the Piprahava record could only register an enshrining of relics of Buddha by the Sakyas at Kapilavastu. It was, consequently, entirely directed to throwing discredit on the tradition about the eventual fate of the relics. Also, it has by no means told us, or even indicated, all that there is to be learnt; and it is not exactly accurate even as far as it goes.

I take the matter from the opposite point of view; namely (see page 149 ff. above), that the inscription registers an enshrining of relics, not of Buddha, but of his slaughtered kinsmen, the Sakyas themselves. And my object is to exhibit the details of the tradition about the relics of Buddha more clearly; to add various items which have been overlooked; and to examine the matter carefully, in the light of the tradition having quite possibly a basis in fact.

And there is a difference between the two cases. To support the previous interpretation of the Piprahava record, it was vitally important to invalidate the tradition about the eventual fate of the corporeal relics of Buddha; for, if, some centuries ago, the memorial mound raised at Kapilavastu by the Sakyas over their share of those relics was opened, and the relics were abstracted from it, how could that monument be found in 1898, externally indeed in a state of ruin, but internally unviolated, with the relics, and a record proclaiming the nature of them, still inside it? For my case, however, the truth or otherwise of the tradition is of no leading importance at all, and might almost be a matter of indifference, except for the intrinsic interest attaching to the tradition itself: the tradition might be shewn to be false, but that would not affect my interpretation of the record; we could still look to find corporeal relics of Buddha in some other memorial in the same neighbourhood. At the same time, while my case is not in any way dependent upon proving the tradition to be true, it is capable of receiving support from a substantiation of the tradition.

However, the question of the merits of the tradition cannot be decided either way, until we have the traditional statements fully before us, in a plain and convenient form. So, I confine myself first to exhibiting those statements just as they are found; starting the matter, in this note, with the tradition about the original division and enshrining of the relics, and going on afterwards to the tradition about the subsequent fate of them. I will review the whole tradition, and consider it in connexion with certain instructive facts, in my following article on the inscription.

Mahaparinibbana-Sutta.

In tracing the history of the corporeal relics of Buddha, we naturally commence with the narrative, presented in the ancient Pali work entitled Mahaparinibbana-Sutta, and possibly dating back to B.C. 375 (see page 670 below), of the circumstances that attended the distribution of them and the building of Stupas or memorial mounds over them. And I prefix to that the account, given in the same work, of the cremation of the corpse of Buddha; because it includes several features of interest which may suitably be brought into relief, with some comments, from the artistic setting in which they stand in the original text.

The narrative runs as follows; see the text edited by Childers in this Journal, 1876, 250 ff., and by Davids and Carpenter in the Digha-Nikaya, part 2. 154 ff., and the translation by Davids in SBE, 11. 112 ff.:1 [Using Childers’ text, which is divided into rather long paragraphs, I found the translation very useful in leading me quickly to the points to be noted. The translation, however, cannot be followed as an infallible guide; and I have had to take my own line in interpreting the text at various places. While revising these proofs, I have seen for the first time Turnour’s article in JASB, 7, 1838. 991 ff., where he gave a translation of the sixth chapter (the one in which we are interested) of this Sutta, and an abstract of the preceding ones. By the later translator, Turnour’s work has been dismissed with the observation (SBE, 11. Introd., 31) that, “though a most valuable contribution for the time, now more than half a century ago,” it “has not been of much service for the present purpose.” Nevertheless, there are several details in which it contrasts very favourably with the later translation.]

The Bhagavat, “ the Blessed One,” Buddha, died, 2 [In this Sutta, Buddha is most usually designated as the Bhagavat. But other appellations of him used in it are the Tathagata, the Sugata, the Sambuddha, and the Samana Gotama. The appellation Buddha occurs in the expression:—amhakam Buddho ahu khantivado; “our Buddha was one who used to preach forbearance” (text, 259/166), in the speech of the Brahman Dona, when he was asking the claimants not to quarrel over the division of the relics. The word used for “he died” is parinibbayi (text, 252/156). From that point, the text constantly presents parinibbuta to describe him as “dead;” and it several times, both here and in previous passages, presents parinibbana to denote his “death.” And, just after the statement that he died, it places in the mouth of the venerable Anuruddha a gatha, of which the last fine runs:— Pajjotasszeva nibbanam vimokho chetaso ahu; “just like the extinction of a lamp, there was a deliverance (of him) from consciousness, conscious existence.” The text thus establishes nibbuta (Sanskrit, nirvrita) as the exact equivalent of parinibbuta (Skt., parinirvrita) in the sense of ‘dead.’ And it establishes nibbana (Skt., nirvana), and any such Sanskrit terms as vimoktha, moksha, mukti, etc., as the exact equivalent of parinibbana (Skt., parinirvana) in the sense of ‘ death.’ I mention this because a view has been expressed that, in addition to a reckoning running from the parinirvana, the death, of Buddha, there was also a reckoning running from his nirvana as denoting some other occurrence in his career.] at the good old age of fourscore years,1 [For this detail, see text, 73/100; trans., 37. And compare text, 249/151; trans., 108; where we are told that, seeking after merit, at the age of twenty-nine he went forth as a wandering ascetic, and that he wandered:— vassani pannasa samadhikani; “for fifty years and somewhat more.” With this last expression, compare the same phrase, but in another connexion, in the Jataka, ed. Fausboll, 2. 383. There, the commentary (after perhaps suggesting, according to one manuscript, sama, for sama, + adhikani) distinctly explains the expression by atireka-pannasa-vassani. From that we can see that samadhika, in both places, is not sama + adhika, ‘increased by a year,’— (giving “fifty years and one year more”),— but is samadhika, ‘possessed of something more,’ with the short a of the antepenultimate syllable lengthened for the sake of the metre. And, in fact, in the passage in the Jataka we have the various reading samadhikani. The long life thus attributed to Buddha is somewhat remarkable in the case of a Hindu. But, if it were an imaginative detail, the figure would almost certainly have been fixed at eighty-four or eighty-two, on the analogy of something referred to further on, under the Divyavadana. The actual cause of the death of Buddha was, coupled with extreme old age, an attack of dysentery induced by a meal of sukara-maddava (text, 231/127). This has been rendered by “dried boar’s flesh” (trans., 71), and elsewhere, not very kindly, by “pork.” Having regard to mridu, ‘soft, delicate, tender,’ as the origin of mardava, maddava, I would suggest “the succulent parts, titbits, of a young wild boar.”] at Kusinara, the city of a branch of a tribe known as the Mallas. And we may note that, though Kusinara is several times mentioned in the Sutta as a nagara, ‘a city,’ still it is distinctly marked as quite a small place. We are expressly told (text, 245/146; trans., 99) that it was not a mahanagara, a great city, like Champa, Rajagaha, Savatthi, Saketa, Kosambi, and Baranasi, full of warriors and Brahmans and householders all devoted to Buddha, but was merely:—kudda-nagaraka, ujjangala- nagaraka, sakha-nagaraka; “a little town of plaster walls, a little town in a clearing of the jungle, a mere branch town;” and that Buddha accepted it for the closing scene of his life because of its pristine greatness, under the name Kusavati, as the royal city of the righteous monarch Maha-Sudassana.

At this little place, then, Buddha died. And he breathed his last breath, in the last watch of the night, on a couch, with its head laid to the north, between a twin pair of Sala-trees which were masses of fruiting flowers from blossoms out of season,1 [The words (text, 239/137) are:— Tena kho pana samayena yamaka-sala sabba-phaliphulla honti akala-pupphehi. The month is not specified. And there were two views on this point. Buddhaghosha says, in the introduction to his Samantapasadika (Vinayapitaka, ed. Oldenberg, 3. 283), that Buddha became parinibbuta, i.e. died, on the full-moon day of the month Visakha, = Vaisakha. Hiuen Tsiang has said (Julien, Memoires, 1. 334; Beal, Records, 2. 33; Watters, On Yuan Chwang, 2. 28) that, according to the ancient historical documents, Buddha entered into nirvana, at the age of eighty, on the fifteenth day of the second half— [meaning apparently the full-moon day]— of the month Vaisakha, but that, according to the school of the Sarvastivadins, he entered into nirvana on the eighth day of the second half of Karttika. We need not speculate about the rival claims. But the following remarks may be made. From Roxburgh’s Plants of the Coast of Coromandel (1819), 3. 9, and plate 212, and Drury’s Useful Plants of India (1858), 405, I gather the following information about the Sala-tree. It has two botanical names, Vatica robusta and Shorea robusta; the latter having been given to it by Roxburgh in honour of Sir John Shore, Bart. (Lord Teignmouth), who was Governor-General of India, 1793-98. It is a native of the southern skirts of the Himalayas, and is a timber-tree which is second in value to only the teak. It grows with a straight majestic trunk, of great thickness, to a height of from 100 to 150 feet, and gives beams which are sometimes 2 feet square and 30 feet or more in length. And it yields also large quantities of resin, the best pieces of which are frequently used, instead of the common incense, in Indian temples. It flowers in the hot season (Roxburgh), in March-April (Drury), with numerous five-petalled pale yellow flowers about three-quarters of an inch in breadth. And the seed, which has a very strong but brief vitality, ripens (by the maturing of the fruit) about three months after the opening of the blossoms. The flowers, of course, begin to fall when the fruit is becoming set. Roxburgh’s plate exhibits well both the flowers and the fruit. Now, it is somewhat difficult to compare the Indian months, whether solar or lunar, with the English months; because (1), owing to the precession of the equinoxes being not taken into consideration in determining the calendar, the Indian months are always travelling slowly forward through the tropical year; and (2), owing to the system of intercalary months, the initial days of the Indian lunar months are always receding by about eleven days for one or two years, and then leaping forwards by about nineteen days. But, in the present time, the full-moon of Vaisakha falls on any day ranging from about 27 April to 25 May, new style. In the time of Buddhaghosha, it ranged from about 2 to 30 April, old style. At the time of the death of Buddha, it ranged from about 25 March to 22 April, old style. The specified day in the month Karttika comes, of course, close upon six months later. The tradition about the month Vaisakha in connexion with the death of Buddha may thus be based on some exceptionally early season, when the Sala-trees had burst into blossom an appreciable time before the commencement of the hot weather. On the other hand, it might quite possibly be founded on only some poetical description of the death of Buddha, containing a play on the word visakha in the two senses of ‘branched, forked,’ and of ‘branchless’ in the way of all the branches being hidden by masses of flowers.] — (the text goes on to emphasize the condition of the flowers by saying that they were constantly dropping off and falling onto the body of Buddha),— in the Sala-grove of the Mallas which was an upavattana, an adjacent part (outskirt or suburb), of the city, on the bank of the Hirannavati, on the further side from the town Pava.  

The venerable Ananda having notified the occurrence,, early in the day, to the Mallas of Kusinara (text, 253/158; trans., 121), the Mallas bade their servants collect perfumes and garlands and all the cymbals and similar musical instruments in Kusinara. And, taking with them those appliances and five hundred pairs of woven cloths (dussa), they repaired to the place where the corpse (sariram) of Buddha lay. They spent the whole of that day in doing homage to the corpse with dancing and songs and music, and with garlands and perfumes, and in making canopies of their garments (chela), and in fashioning wreaths. And then, finding it too late to cremate the corpse, they determined to perform the cremation on the following day. In the same way, however, there passed away the second day, and the third, the fourth, the fifth, and even the sixth.1 [Here the question arises: how was the corpse of Buddha preserved from hopeless decomposition during the time that elapsed? I would suggest that the mention of the perfumes and the woven cloths (dussa, — Skt. dursa) may indicate that recourse was had to some process of embalming and swathing. And, in fact, (see trans., introd., 39 f.), Robert Knox, in his Historical Relation of Ceylon, part 3, chapter 11, in describing the arrangements for cremation, has expressly mentioned disembowelling and embalming in cases where the corpse of a person of quality is not cremated speedily.]

On the seventh day (text, 254/159; trans., 123), the Mallas proposed to carry the corpse by the south and outside the city to a spot outside the city on the south, and to cremate it there. And eight of their chief men, having washed their heads and clad themselves in new clothes (ahata vattha), prepared to lift the corpse. But they could not raise it; for, as the venerable Anuruddha explained, such was not the purpose of the gods.

Accordingly (text, 255/160; trans., 124),— the intention of the gods having been fully made known to them,— still doing homage to the corpse with their own mortal dancing and songs and music and with garlands and perfumes, together with an accompaniment of divine dancing and songs and music and garlands and perfumes from the gods, they carried the corpse by the north to the north of the city. Then, entering by the northern gate, they carried it through the midst of the city into the midst thereof.1 [A very special honour was conferred on the corpse of Buddha by this treatment; for (as the translator has indicated, 125, note), to carry into the city, in any ordinary case, the corpse of a person who had died outside it, would have polluted the city. In a similar manner, the corpse of Mahinda was carried into the city Anuradhapura by the eastern gate, and through the midst of the city, and then out again on the south; see Dipavamsa, 17. 102, 103.] And then, going out by the eastern gate, they carried it to the shrine known as the Makutabandhanachetiya or coronation-temple2 [See note on page 160 above.] of the Mallas, which was on the east of the city. And there they laid it down.

There, under the directions of the venerable Ananda (text, 255/161; trans., 125),3 [He was, in fact, repeating instructions which had been given to him by Buddha; see text, 242/141; trans., 92.] the corpse was prepared for cremation, in all respects just as if it had been the corpse of a Chakkavatti or universal monarch. It was wrapped in a new cloth (ahata vattha), and then in flocks of cotton (kappasa), alternately, until there were five hundred layers of each. It was then placed in an iron-coloured oil-trough, which was covered by another iron-coloured trough.4 [The text here is:— ayasaya tela-doniya pakkhipitva annissa ayasaya doniya patikujjitva. For following the translator in rendering the apparently somewhat rare word patikujjetva, patikujjitva — (it is not given in Childers’ Pali Dictionary; but the translator has given us, p. 93, note 1, two other references for it, in the Jataka, 1. 50, 69)—by “having covered,’’ I find another authority in the Theragatha, verse 681:—“A puffed up, flighty friar, resorting to evil friends, sinks down with them in a great torrent,— ummiya patikujjito, covered, turned over, overwhelmed, by a wave.” And it appears that we have in Sanskrit nikubjana in the sense of ‘upsetting, turning over.’ So also Childers has given us, in Pali, nikujjita, with the variant nikkujjita, in the sense of ‘overturned, upside down,’ and nikhijjana, ‘reversal, upsetting.’ As regards the word ayasa, I suppose that it does represent the Sanskrit ayasa, from ayas, 'iron;’ in fact, it is difficult to see how it can be anything else. As to its meaning, Buddhaghosha’s assertion (see trans., 92, note 4) that ayasa (as he has it) was here used in the sense of ‘gold, golden,’ can hardly be accepted; but his comment is of use in indicating that he was not quite satisfied that the troughs were made of iron: he may have thought that, whereas iron troughs could not be burnt up or even melted, golden troughs might at least be melted. In following the understanding, when I previously had this passage under observation (note on page 160 above), that the troughs were made of iron, I felt the following difficulty:— The two iron troughs themselves cannot have been consumed; and how could any fire from the outside reach what was inside them?: and, even if the contents of the lower trough were set on fire before the covering trough was placed over it, still, how could they continue to burn without free access of air? But I did not then see any way out of the difficulty. It has been since then suggested to me that perhaps the troughs were made red-hot, and the corpse of Buddha was baked, not burnt; but there could hardly be accomplished in that way the complete destruction of everything except the bones. If, however, it was really intended to mark the troughs as made of iron, why were two separate words used— (at any rate where doni is not in composition with tela),— instead of the compound ayo-doni, just as we have in Sanskrit ayo-droni, ‘an iron trough’?; in such a trough, we are told (Divyavadana, 377), there was pounded to death, along with her child, a lady of the harem who had given offence to Asoka. Further, ayasa is distinctly used to mean, not ‘made of iron,’ but ‘of the colour of iron,’ in the Mahabharata, 5. 1709; there Sanatsujata tells Dhritarashtra that brahman, the self-existing impersonal spirit, may appear as either white, or red, or black, or iron-coloured (ayasa), or sun-coloured. And Robert Knox (loc. cit.; see note on page 660 above) has mentioned a custom of placing the corpse of a person of quality, for cremation, inside a tree cut down and hollowed out like a hog-trough. In these circumstances, I now take the text as indicating wooden troughs, which, naturally or as the result of being painted, were of the colour of iron; adding that an oil-trough seems to have been used as the lower receptacle because, being saturated with oil, it would be very inflammable. But, to make sure of understanding the whole passage correctly, we require to find a detailed description of the cremation of the corpse of a Chakkavatti.] And it was then placed on a funeral pile (chitaka) made of all sorts of odorous substances.

Four chief men of the Mallas (text, 257/163; trans., 128), who had washed their heads and clothed themselves in new clothes for the purpose, then sought to set the funeral pile on fire. But they could not do so; because, as was explained to them by the venerable Anuruddha, the intention of the gods was otherwise: namely, that the pile should not catch fire until homage should have been done at the feet of Buddha by the venerable Maha-Kassapa, who, travelling at that time from Pava to Kusinara with a great company of five hundred Bhikkhus, friars, had heard on the way, from an Ajivaka,1 [A non-Buddhist religious mendicant; probably a worshipper of Vishnu (see, e.g., IA, 20. 361 f.).] the news of the death of Buddha, and was pushing on to Kusinara. In due course, Maha-Kassapa and the five hundred Bhikkhus arrived. And, when they had done homage at the feet of Buddha, the funeral pile caught fire of its own accord.

The corpse (sariram) of Buddha was then (text, 258/164; trans., 130) so thoroughly consumed, and, with it, every two cloths of the five hundred pairs of woven cloths (dussa) in which it had been swathed, that, just as when ghee1 [The word is sappi, ‘ghee, clarified butter;’ not anything meaning ‘glue’’ as might be thought from the translation.] or oil is burnt, neither ashes nor soot could be detected, either of the cuticle, or of the skin, or of the flesh, or of the sinews, or of the lubricating fluid of the joints; only the bones (sarirani) were left.2 [It may be useful to remark here that the tradition seems to have been as follows:— The following bones remained uninjured; the four canine teeth, the two collar-bones, and the unhisa, ushnisha, an excrescence from the cranium. The other bones were more or less injured by the fire, and were reduced to fragments, of which the smallest were of the size of a mustard-seed, the medium-sized were of the size of half a grain of rice, and the largest were of the size of half a mugga or kidney-bean. I take this from Turnour, JASB, 7, 1838. 1013, note. He apparently took it from Buddhaghosha’s commentary.] Then streams of water fell down from the sky, and extinguished the pyre. So, also, from “the storehouse of waters (beneath the earth)” streams of water arose, and extinguished the pyre. And the Mallas of Kusinara extinguished the pyre with water scented with perfumes of all kinds.3 [To this apparent act of supererogation, attention has been drawn by the translator (130, note). As, however, Buddha had died and was cremated in their village-domain, the Mallas were entitled to take a part in quenching the funeral fire.]

Then, for seven days (text, 258/164; trans., 131), the Mallas of Kusinara guarded the bones, the corporeal relics (sarirani), of Buddha in their santhagara, their townhall, within a cage of spears with a rampart of bows; doing homage to them with dancing and songs and music, and with garlands and perfumes.

Meanwhile, the news had spread abroad. So (text, 258/164; trans., 131), messengers arrived, from various people who claimed shares of the corporeal relics (sarirani), and promised to erect Thupas (Stupas, memorial mounds) and hold feasts in honour of them. Ajatasattu, king of Magadha, the Vedehiputta or son of a lady of the Videha people, sent a messenger, and claimed a share on the ground that both he and Buddha were Khattiyas, members of the warrior and regal caste.4 [Fourteen days elapsed, and apparently no more, from the death of Buddha to the distribution of his relics. The distances over which, during the interval, the news had to travel and the claims to shares of the relics had to be transmitted in return, can hardly be estimated until we can arrive at some definite opinion as to the identification of Kusinara.] Shares were claimed on the same ground, and in the same way, by the Lichchhavis of Vesali, the Bulis of Allakappa, the Koliyas of Ramagama, and the Mallas of Pava. A share was claimed by the Sakyas of Kapilavatthu, on the ground:— Bhagava amhakam natisettho; “the Blessed One was our chief kinsman.” And a share was claimed by a Brahman (not named) of Vethadipa, on the ground that, as a Brahman, he was entitled to receive relics of a Khattiya.

At first (text, 259/166; trans., 133), the Mallas of Kusinara, addressing the messengers company by company and troop by troop,1 [The text before this indicates only one messenger from each claimant. It here says:— Kosinaraka Malla te samghe gane etadzavochum. The translator has said:—“The Mallas of Kusinara spoke to the assembled brethren.” But I do not find any reason for rendering the words te samghe gane by “the assembled brethren.” We need not exactly go as far as Buddhaghosha does, in asserting that each claimant took the precaution, in case of a refusal, of following his messenger in person, with an army. We may, however, surmise that each messenger was, not merely a runner bearing a verbal demand or a letter, but a duly accredited envoy, of some rank, provided with an armed escort. ] refused to part with any of the relics; because Buddha had died in their gama-kkhetta, their village-domain. It was pointed out to them, however, by a Brahman named Dona, who addressed the parties company by company and troop by troop, that it was not seemly that any strife should arise over the relics, and that it was desirable that there should be Thupas far and wide, in order that many people might become believers. So, with their consent, thus obtained, he divided the corporeal relics (sarirani) into eight equal shares, fairly apportioned, and distributed them to the claimants. And he himself received the kumbha, the earthen jar in which the bones had been collected after the cremation.2 [See note on page 160 above. One of the manuscripts used for the text in the Digha-Nikaya gives, instead of kumbha, both here and twice below, tumbha. This latter word is explained in Childers’ Pali Dictionary as meaning ‘ sort of water vessel with a spout.’] And to the Moriyas of Pipphalivana,— who, also, had claimed a share on the ground that, like Buddha, they were Khattiyas, but whose messenger had arrived too late, after the division of the relics,— there were given the extinguished embers (angara) of the fire.

Thus, then (text, 260/166; trans., 134), Ajatasattu, king of Magadha, made a Thupa over corporeal relics (sarirani) of Buddha, and held a feast, at Rajagaha. So did the Lichchhavis of Vesali, at Vesali. So did the Sakyas of Kapilavatthu, at Kapilavatthu. And so did the Bulis of Allakappa, at or in1 [Here, and in two other cases, I have not been able to determine whether mention is made of a place or of a territory. ] Allakappa; the Kdoiyas of Ramagama, at Ramagama; the Brahman of Vethadipa, at or in Vethadipa; the Mallas of Pava, at Pava;2 [Both here, and in the passage about the messengers, the Mallas of Pava stand last among the seven outside claimants who obtained shares of the corporeal relics. Of course, someone or other was bound to be mentioned last. But Buddhaghosha, taking things very literally, has made a comment to the following purport:—Considering that Pava was only three gavutas from Kusinara, and that Buddha had halted there on his way to Kusinara, how was it that the Mallas of Pava did not arrive first of all? Because they were princes who went about with a great retinue, and the assembling of their retinue delayed them. He has apparently not offered any explanation of a really practical point; namely, why the messenger of the Moriyas of Pipphalivana did not arrive in time to obtain a share of the corporeal relics for them.] and the Mallas of Kusinara, at Kusinara. And, at some unspecified place, the Brahman Dona made a Thupa over the kumbha, the earthen jar in which the bones had been collected after the cremation, and held a feast. And the Moriyas of Pipphalivana made a Thupa over the embers, and held a feast, at or in Pipphalivana.

Thus there were eight Thupas for the corporeal relics (attha sarira-thupa), and a ninth for the kumbha, the earthen jar, and a tenth for the embers. “That is how it happened in former times!”3 [Buddhaghosha says, in his commentary, that this sentence:—evam etani bhuta-pubbam, was established by those people who made the third Samgiti (who held the third “Council”). Of course, from his point of view, which was that the Sutta was written at the time of the events narrated in it. But the sentence is, in reality, the natural, artistic complement of the opening words of the Sutta:— Evam me sutam; “thus have I heard!”]

Some verses standing at the end of the Sutta (text, 260/167; trans., 135) assert that the body (sariram) of Buddha measured (in relics) eight measures of the kind called dona;1[The word dona, drona, has sometimes been translated by ‘bushel.’ But, even if there is an approximation between the two measures, there are difficulties in the way of employing European words as exact equivalents of Indian technical terms; see, for instance, a note on the rendering of one of Hiuen Tsiang’s statements further on.] and they say that, of these, seven donas receive honour in Jambudipa, India, and one from the kings of the Nagas, the serpent-demons, at Ramagama.2 [This statement seems calculated to locate Ramagama outside the limits of Jambudipa; unless we may place it, with the usual abodes of the Nagas, below the earth. ] They further say that one tooth is worshipped in heaven, and one is honoured in the town of Gandhara, and one in the dominions of the king of Kalinga, and one by the Naga kings.3 [For a statement of belief, apparently not very early, regarding the localities of deposit of various personal relics of Buddha, see the Buddhavamsa, ed. Morris, section 28. According to that work, the alms-bowl, staff, and robe of Buddha were at Vajira. And in this place we recognize the origin of the name of the Vajiriya, the members of one of the schismatic Buddhist schools which arose after the second century after the death of Buddha; see the Mahavamsa, Turnour, p. 21, as corrected by Wijesinha, p. 15. Amongst the Jains, there was a sect the name of which we have, in epigraphic records, in the Prakrit or mixed-dialect forms of Vaira Sakha (EI, 1. 385, No. 7; 392, No. 22; 2. 204, No. 20; 321); Vera or Vaira Sakha (EI, 2. 203, No. 18); Vairi Sakha (VOR, l. 174); Arya-Veri Sakha (EI, 2. 202, No. 15); and the Sakha of the Arya-Veriyas (EI, 1. 386, No. 8): and, in literature, in the Prakrit forms of Vairi or Vayari, and Ajja-Vaira Sakha (Kalpasutra, ed. Jacobi, 82), with the concomitant mention, evidently as the alleged founder of it, of a teacher named Ajja-Vaira, Vayara, or Vera (id., 78, 82). May we not find the origin of the name of this sect in the same place-name, rather than in a teacher Vajra, in connexion with whom the sect is mentioned, by a Sanskrit name, as the Vajra-Sakha (EI, 2. 51, verse 5)? ]

Buddhaghosha says, in his commentary, that these verses were uttered by Theras, Elders, of the island Tambapanni, Ceylon.4 [According to his text, as I have it, he does not say that they were “added by Theras in Ceylon” (trans., 135, note).] And they seem to have been framed after the time when there had been devised the story (which we shall meet with further on, first under the Dipavamsa) to the effect that the god Indra, while retaining the right tooth of Buddha, gave up the right collar-bone to be enshrined in Ceylon. Otherwise, surely, the verses would have mentioned the right collar-bone, also, as being worshipped in heaven? On the other hand, they must have been framed before the time when the tooth-relic was transferred from Kalinga to Ceylon; that was done, according to the Mahavamsa (Turnour, 241; Wijesinha, 154), in the ninth year of king Siri-Meghavanna of Ceylon.

They are, however, useful in helping to explain an expression, drona-stupa, a Stupa containing a drona of relics, which is applied, in the story which we shall take from the Divyavadana, to the Stupa of Ajatasatru at Rajagriha. As has been remarked long ago, the idea that each of the eight original Stupas contained a dona, a drona, of relics, of course had its origin in a dim reminiscence of the part played by the Brahman Dona, Drona; to whom, by the way, some of the later traditions, reported by Buddhaghosha and Hiuen Tsiang, impute disreputable behaviour, with a view to securing some of the corporeal relics, in addition to the kumbha.

*****

Some remarks must be made here regarding the probable date and the value of the preceding narrative.

Reasons have been advanced by the translator of the Mahaparinibanna-Sutta for holding (trans., introd., 13) that the work cannot well have been composed very much later than the fourth century B.C. And , in the other direction, he has claimed (this Journal, 1901. 397) that substantially, as to not only ideas but also words, it can be dated approximately in the fifth century. That would tend to place the composition of its narrative within eight decades after the death of Buddha, for which event B.C. 482 seems to me the most probable and satisfactory date that we are likely to obtain. In view, however, of a certain prophecy which is placed by the Sutta in the mouth of Buddha, it does not appear likely that the work can be referred to quite so early a time as that.

In the course of his last journey, Buddha came to the village Pataligama (text, 60/84; trans., 15). At that time, we know from the commencement of the work, there was war, or a prospect of war, between Ajatasatta, king of Magadha, and the Vajji people. And, when Buddha was on this occasion at Pataligama, Sunidha and Vassakara, the Mahamattas or high ministers for Magadha, were laying out a regular city (nagara) at Pataligama, in order to ward off the Vajjis [NO CITATION!] (text, 62/86; trans., 18.)1 [Compare the story about the founding of Rajagriha which we shall meet with further on, under Hiuen Tsiang.] The place was haunted by many thousands of “fairies” (devata), who inhabited the plots of ground there. And it was by that spiritual influence that Sunidha and Vassakara had been led to select the site for the foundation of a city; the text says (trans., 18): “Wherever ground is so occupied by powerful fairies, they bend the hearts of the most powerful kings and ministers to build dwelling-places there, and fairies of middling and inferior power bend in a similar way the hearts of middling or inferior kings and ministers.” Buddha with his supernatural clear sight beheld the fairies. And, remarking to his companion, the venerable Ananda, that Sunidha and Vassakara were acting just as if they had taken counsel with the Tavatimsa “angels” (deva), he said (text, 63/87; trans., 18): -- “Inasmuch, O Ananda!, as it is an honourable place as well as a resort of merchants, this shall become a leading city (agga-nagara), Pataliputta (by name), a (?) great trading centre (putabhedana); but, O Ananda!, (one of) three dangers will befall Pataliputta, either from fire, or from water, or from dissension.” 2 [From the use of the particle va, ‘or,’ three times, the meaning seems clearly to be that only one of the three dangers should actually happen to the city. For the danger from fire, compare the story about Girivraja, under Hiuen Tsiang.]

Unless this passage is an interpolation, which does not seem probable, the work cannot have been composed until after the prophecy had been so far fulfilled that the village Pataligrama had become the leading city, the capital Pataliputra.

Now, Hiuen Tsiang, in the account given by him under Rajagriha, has reported that a king Asoka, who, so far, might or might not be the promulgator of the well-known edicts, transferred his court to Pataliputra from Rajagriha; that is, that he, for the first time, made Pataliputra the capital. And, from the way in which mention is made of Pataliputta in the Girnar version of the fifth rock-edict (EI, 2. 453, line 7), we know that Pataliputra was certainly the capital of the promulgator of the edicts, Asoka the Maurya, who was anointed to the sovereignty in B.C. 264, when 218 years had elapsed after the death of Buddha.

But we know from Megasthenes, through Strabo.1 [See McCrindle in IA, 6.131, and Ancient India, 12 i.] that Pataliputra was the capital of also Chandragupta, the grandfather of the Asoka who promulgated the edicts. In his account of Pataliputra itself, Hiuen Tsiang has said, more specifically,2 [Julien, Memoires, 1. 414; Beal, Records, 2. 85; Watters, On Yuan Chwang, 2. 88. As a matter of fact, not even Kalasoka the Saisunaga was a great-grandson of Bimbisara. But this point is not a material one. Except perhaps in the passage mentioned just above, from the account given by Hiuen Tsiang under Rajagriha, where Julien has left the point undertermined, and except in the present passage, Hiuen Tsiang has, in the passages which I am using on this occasion, denoted his Asoka by the Chinese translation of the name, meaning (like the Indian name itself) ‘sorrowless,’ which has been transcribed by Julien as Wou-yeou, by Beal as Wu-yau, and by Watters as A-yu. It was A-yu who visited Ramagrama, and who opened the Stupas at Vaisali and Rajagriha and that in the Chan-chu kingdom over the earthen jar. Here, however, Hiuen Tsiang has denoted his Asoka by the Chinese transliteration of the name, which has been transcribed by Julien as ‘O-chou-kia, by Beal as ‘O-shu-kia, and by Watters as A-shu-ka. This detail is noteworthy: because Hiuen Tsiang has said in the immediately preceding sentence that it was A-yu who made the “hell” at Pataliputra; and, even closelyi after introducing the name A-shu-ka here, he has reverted to the other, and has said again that A-yu made the “hell” (Julien, ibid.) and that A-yu destroyed it (418), and also that it was A-yu who built one, or the first, of the 84,000 Stupas (417 f.). For reasons, however, which may be stated on another occasion, it cannot be said for certain from this passage that the king Asoka who made Pataliputra the capital was, at that place, expressly identified to Hiuen Tsiang as being not the Asoka who made the hell, opened the original Stupas, built 84,000 other ones, etc.] that in the first century, or in the year 100, after the death of Buddha, there was a king Asoka (A-shu-ka), a great-grandson of Bimbisara; and that he left Rajagriha, and transferred his court to Patali(putra), and caused a second wall to be made round the ancient town. And the Dipavamsa, in its first reference to Pataliputta, mentions it (5.26) as the capital of that Asoka, Kalasoka, son of Susunaga, who began to reign ninety years after the death of Buddha; mentioning, on the other hand, (3.52) Rajagaha (but ? rather Giribbaja) as the capital of Bodhisa (for Bhatiya) the father of Bimbisara.

Tradition thus seems to indicate, plainly enough, that it was by Kalasoka, who reigned for twenty-eight years,1 [So Buddhaghosha, in the introduction to his Samantapasadika; see the Vinayupitaka, ed. Oldenberg, 3. 321. So also the Mahavamsa, 15, line 7. Buddhaghosha has mentioned him as simply Asoka in that place, but as Kalasoka in passages on pages 293, 320.] B.C. 392-365, that Pataliputra was made the capital, and to make it practically certain that the Mahaparinibbana-Sutta cannot have been composed before about B.C. 375.

The Sutta may really have been written then. Or it may be of later origin; how much so, we cannot at present say.2 [The following suggests itself as a point that should be considered in any full inquiry. Does the appellation of the work really mean, as has been understood, “the book of the great decease”? If so, when did the terms mahabhinikkhamana, ‘the great going forth from worldly life,’ and mahaparinibbana, ‘the great decease,’ applied to those events in the case of Buddha as against nikkhamana and parinibbana in the case of ordinary people, first become established? Or does the appellation indicate only “the great(er) book of the decease,” as contrasted with some earlier and smaller work of the same kind?] But it is certainly a very ancient work. The narrative presented all through it is so simple and dignified, and for the most part so free from miraculous interventions – (these occur chiefly, and not unnaturally so, in connexion with the death and cremation of Buddha) – and from extravagances of myth and absurdities of doctrine and practice, that it commands respect and belief. And so, in spite of the way in which (we know) history in India was liable to be somewhat quickly overlaid with imaginative and mythical details, I see no reason for regarding as otherwise than authentic the main facts asserted in the Sutta, including those attending the original disposal of the corporeal relics of Buddha.

It follows that we may at least believe that, over the eight portions of the corporeal relics of Buddha, Stupas were erected—

(1) At Rajagriha, by Ajatasatru king of Magadha.

(2) At Vaisali, by the Lichchhavis.

(3) At Kapilavastu, by the Sakyas.

(4) At or in Allakappa, by the Buli people.

(5) At Ramagrama, by the Koliyas.

(6) At or in Vethadipa, by an unnamed Brahman of that place or territory.

(7) At Pava, by a branch of the Mallas.

(8) At Kusinagara, by another branch of the Mallas.

Further, there were erected Stupas—

(9) At some unstated place, by the Brahman Drona, over the kumbha, the earthen jar in which the bones of Buddha had been collected.

(10) At Pippalivana, by the Mauryas, over the extinguished embers of the funeral pile.  
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Part 1 of 2

Megasthenes and the Indian Chronology As Based on the Puranas
by K.D. Sethna
Purana VIII
Bulletin of the Purana Department
Ministry of Education
Government of India
1966



One last point in connection with the puranic king lists ought to be mentioned here. Arrian's Indike (9.9), quoting Megasthenes, states that "from Dionysus to Sandracottus the Indians counted a hundred and fifty-three kings, over six thousand and forty-three years."41 [41 Loeb, tr., E. Iliff Robson, p. 333.] Similarly, in Pliny's Natural History (6.59): "From the time of Father Liber to Alexander the Great 153 kings are counted in a period of 6451 years and three months."42 [42 Loeb, tr. H. Rackem, p. 383.] Classical scholars have wondered about these figures, not to mention the intriguing discrepancy.43 [43 E.g., Pierre CHANTRAINE: Arrien. L'Inde, Paris: Belles Lettres, 21952, p. 35. For a different type of speculation, identifying Sandracottus with Candragupta I Gupta -- rather than Maurya -- who would have been enthroned in 325 or 324 B.C., and on the Indian identity of Father Bacchus, the kind of chronology handed Megasthenes; etc., see K.D. SETHNA: Megasthenes and the Indian Chronology as Based on the puranas, Pur 8, 1966, 9-37, 276-294; 9, 1967, 121-129; 10, 1968, 35-53, 124-147.] More important is the fact that, at least from Megasthenes' time onward, Indians had puranic lists of kings, some of which came to the notice of the foreign visitor.44 [44 Cf. L. ROCHER: The Greek and Latin Data about India. Some Fundamental Considerations, Zakir Husain vol. (1968), 34. Also KANE 1962: 849.]

-- Frederick Eden Pargiter: Excerpt from The Puranas, by Ludo Rocher


Megasthenes was the Greek ambassador sent by Seleucus Nicator in c. 302 B.C. to the court of the Indian king whom the Greeks called Sandrocottus and whose capital they designated as Palibothra in the country of the Prasii. Scholars have identified the Prasii as the Prachya (Easterners) and Palibothra as Pataliputra and seen the eastern kingdom of Magadha, whose capital was Pataliputra, in the Greek references to the Prasii. The name "Sandrocottus" has been equated with "Chandragupta" and the king who received Megasthenes is said to have been Chandragupta Maurya who, like Sandrocottus, was the founder of a dynasty in Magadha.  

The Question of the Two Chandraguptas

The founder of the Mauryas, however, is not the only Chandragupta known to history as a Magadhan emperor and the founder of a dynasty. There is also the first of the Imperial Guptas, Chandragupta I. Modern historians date him to 320 A.D. and set forth many reasons for the identification of Sandrocottns with Chandragupta Maurya. These are claimed to be supported most convincingly by several lines of evidence converging to date Chandragupta Maurya's grandson Asoka to the middle of the 3rd century B.C. But the ancient chronology of India herself, based on the dynastic sections of the Puranas and other indigenous testimonies and traditions, runs counter to this historical vision.

The Puranic account starts with the date 3102 B.C. which it calls the beginning of the Kaliyuga and goes back by 36 years to 3138 B.C. for the Bharata War between the Kuru and the Pandavas as well as for the birth of Parikshit, the grand-nephew of Yudhishthira -- Yudhishthira who ruled at Hastinapura after the Pandava victory in that year down to the Kaliyuga year which was marked by the death of Krishna and the installation by Yadhishthira of Parikshit in his own place so that he and his family might be free to go on a world-pilgrimage. The ancient Indian chronology takes also into account 3177 B.C. This date is connected with what is termed the cycle of Sapta Rishi, the Seven Rishis, the stars of the constellation Great Bear. The Seven Rishis are supposed to make a cycle of 2700 years by a stay of 100 years in each of the 27 Nakshatras or lunar asterisms of the ecliptic. 3177 B.C. marks their entry for a century's stay in the asterism Magha.

The Puranas offer two sets of general calculation. One is concerned with the Sapta Rishi cycle. The Vayu-Purana (99. 423, as well as the Brahmanda Purana,1 [F. I. Pargiter, Purana Texts of the Dynasties of the Kali Age (London, 1913, p. 61, n. 92.] says that the Seven Rishis who were in Magha in the time of Parikshit complete their 24th century in a part of the Andhra (Satavahana) dynasty. This means: when 2400 years had passed after 3177 B.C. the Andhra dynasty had already started. The Brahmanda (III. 74.230) again says that during the same dynasty there is the 27th century and that the asterism Magha, whose guardians are the Pitris (Ancestors), follows once more. A verse of the Matsya Parana1 [ Ibid., p. 59. ] speaks also of the cycle repeating itself after the 27th century and connects the repetition with the same dynasty using an expression which can be translated either as "at the end of the Andhras" or as "in the end..." The second rendering would be consistent with the substance of the Brahmanda verse. And both the verses, putting the completion of the 27th century in the terminal portion of the Andhras, balance those which put the completion of the 24th in the initial portion.

The Andhra line consisted, according to most Puranas, of 30 kings. So the closing part should mean at least one-fourth of the number, the last 7 or 8 kings. We may hold that 2700 passed from 3177 B.C. up to some point in the reign of one of the last 7 Andhras. The total of these reigns in the Puranas is (28 + 7 + 3 + 29 + 6 + 10 + 7 = ) 90 years. Hence the end of the dynasty might be anywhere between (3177-2700 =) 477 B.C. and (477- 90 = ) 387 B.C.

As a complement to the Sapta Rishi computation we get from the Puranas a number of periods termed "intervals", which bring a greater exactness. From the birth of Parikshit to the Coronation of Mahapadma Nanda, founder of the dynasty just preceding the Mauryas, there was an interval which is variously given as 1015, 1050, and 1500 years. From this coronation to the beginning of the Andhras there was an interval of 836 years. Since 1500 years -- as Anand Swarup Gupta2 ["The Problem of Interpretation of the Puranas", Purana, Vol. VI, No. I. January, 1964, pp. 67-68. ] has recently reminded us tally with the total of the reign-lengths which most Puranas ascribe to the dynasties of Magadha from the Bharata War to Mahapadma's coronation,3 [Ibid., p. 68: Barhadrathas, 1000 years; Pradyotas, 138; Sisunagas, 362.] we may use it to reach the date of the rise of the Nandas. We get (3138-1500 = ) 1638 B.C. Then we reach the start of the Andhras in (1638-836 =) 802 B.C. The Puranas, as D.C. Sircar1 [The Satavahanas and the Chedis, The Age of Imperial Unity, edited by R. C. Majumdar and A.D. Pusalker (Bombay, 1951), p. 196, fn. 1 continued from p. 195. ] notes, record for the full run of the Andhras several numbers: 300, 411, 412, 456, 460 years. Out of these, 411 and 412 bring us from 802 B.C. to 391 and 390 B.C. respectively -- both the dates falling within the range 477- 387 B.C. obtained from the Sapta Rishi computation.

The next great dynasty after the Andhras is the Imperial Guptas. The Puranas mention the Guptas in general and connect a group of territories with them, which by being referred to no one particular Gupta would seem to be the persistent core, the stable heartland, of the expanding or contracting Gupta empire. But the Puranas supply no chronological matter about the Guptas, except that some lapse of time between them and the Andhras is suggested. Hence the Imperial Guptas, according to the Puranas, must come somewhere in the rest of the 4th century B.C. With a Chandragupta of Pataliputra at their head and a Sandrocottus becoming king of Palibothra in c. 325 or 324 B.C. by modern calculations, it is evident that Puranically Sandrocottus must be Chandragupta I of the Imperial Guptas and not Chandragupta Maurya.

Whatever we may say, by way of criticism, about the Kaliyuga's commencement in 3102 B.C. or the Bharata War's occurrence in 3138 B.C. or the coronation of Mahapadma Nanda in 1638 B.C. or even the start of the Andhras in 802 B.C., we cannot help being struck with the precision with which this chronology s ynchronises Chandragupta I with Sandrocottus.

Such a situation raises the question: "Which of the Chandraguptas was Sandrocottus at whose court Megasthenes lived?" And it is indeed very pertinent to ask: "Does Megasthenes offer any chronological clue to solve it?"

The Chronological Clue from Megasthenes

We have three versions of a statement by Megasthenes, which can bear upon our problem. J. McCrindle has translated all of them.1 [The Classical Accounts of India, edited with an Introduction, Notes and Comments by R. C. Majumdar (Calcutta, 1960),- pp. 840, 457, 223. ]

Pliny (VI. xxl. 4-5) reports about the Indians: "From the days of Father Bacchus to Alexander the Great, their kings are reckoned at 154, whose reigns extend over 6451 years and 3 months."

Solinus (52.5) says: "Father Bacchus was the first who invaded India, and was the first of all who triumphed, over the vanquished Indians. From him to Alexander the Great 6451 years are reckoned with 3 months additional, the calculation being made by counting the kings, who reigned in the intermediate period, to the number of 153."

Arrian (Indica, I. ix) observes: "From the time of Dionysus to Sandrocottus the Indians counted 153 kings and a period of 6042 years, but among these a republic was thrice established... and another to 300 years, and another to 120 years. The Indians also tell us, that Dionysus was earlier than Heracles by fifteen generations, and that except him no one made a hostile invasion of India.... but that Alexander indeed came and overthrew in war all whom he attacked..."

It would be worth while discussing the three versions in every detail and arriving at what must have been the full original pronouncement of Megasthenes which has thus got transmitted with some confusions and inconsistencies and one lacuna. But for our immediate purpose it will suffice to make a few clarifying observations and then inquire: "What historical or legendary figure mentioned by the Indians became identified with Dionysus (Bacchus) in the Greek mind to serve as the starting-point of Indian chronology and of the line of Indian kings?

First, we may note from the more expansive versions of Solinus and Arrian that Dionysus and Alexander are terms of comparison in respect of the invaders of India -- especially the Greek ones. Dionysus is declared to be the first who invaded India, Alexander the only other person to do so. The most appropriate way to connect them is by calculating the time that elapsed between them. Solinus gives us just this time-connection, To connect the two invaders by a number of kings, as does Pliny is controversial; for, it brings up at once the issue: "Does the number refer to the whole of ancient India?" 153 or 154 kings are far too few for the whole, in which there were a host of practically independent kingdoms, each with its own genealogy of rulers. The number must be in reference to merely one particular kingdom which was associated with Alexander and with which Dionysus may have been associated either directly or through some scion of his. But can we associate any such kingdom with Alexander? He subjugated several states, but he was not specifically a king of this or that state. So his name at one end of a king-series is an anomaly.

Quite the reverse is the case with Sandrocottus whose name in Arrians' king-series replaces Pliny's "Alexander". Sandrocottus, though emperor of many peoples, is specifically known as the King of the Prasii -- the Prasii whom Pliny elsewhere (VI.22) describes as the greatest nation in India. We can easily conceive him as the tail-end of a line which goes back through various dynasties of kings of Palibothra to a hoary past along one branch among many leading to a common ancestor.

This conception seems natural when we realise that the small king-number was mentioned to Megasthenes at Palibothra itself, where he was stationed as ambassador. And what endows this conception with inevitability is the importance which Indian chronologists and historians have given to Magadha whose capital was Palibothra: the kings of Magadha after the Bharata War are the principal theme of the Puranic lists of dynasties, Sandrocottus and not Alexander was certainly the terminus intended by Megasthenes to the king-series the Indians mentioned to him.

But this series, although not related to Alexander, can well serve to describe from the Magadhan point of view the time-span from Dionysus to Alexander. And that is exactly how Solinus uses it, even if without the implication of Magadha such as Arrian has. Arrian too is justified in using it to describe the time-span from Dionysus to Sandrocottus. For, the two time-spans could not be much different. Alexander and Sandrocottus were contemporaries, and the gap of over 409 years which is there between the number in Arrian and that in Pliny or Solinus is a gross mistake. Arrian's time-span should really be not so much less nor even the same but a little more. Plutarch1 [Life of Alexander, LXIII. ] as well as Justin2 [Historiarum Philippicarum, XV. 1 v.] record that when Alexander, some time after his invasion, met Sandrocottus, the latter was not yet a king. According to Plutarch, the meeting took place round about the time the Macedonians "most resolutely opposed Alexander when he insisted that they should cross the Ganges". Alexander's progress came to a halt at approximately the end of July 326 B.C.3 [ "Foreign Invasions" by R. K. Mookerji, The Age of Imperial Unity p. 50. ] Thus we are sure that Sandrocottus mounted the throne of Palibothra later than this date. If we accept the more detailed time-span -- 6451 years and 3 months -- conveyed by Pliny and Solinus as our basis and if we try to guess the one in Arrian by introducing the least possible changes in the figures which he supplies, Sandrocottus's coronation must have been not 6042 but 6452 years after what Arrian calls "the time of Dionysus" and Pliny "the days of Father Bacchus".

Here we must consider the import of these two phrases, for they determine how we should count the 153 or 154 kings. Do they direct us to the beginning of Dionysus's kingship in India or to the end of it? In other words, is Dionysus included in the 153 or 154 kings? The phrase "From... to" employed by all the writers is ambiguous, whether we apply it to the "time" and "days" or to the king-number. Luckily we have an unequivocal phrase in Solinus to guide us: "the calculation being made by counting the kings who reigned in the intermediate period..." The reference is to the number of years and months from Dionysus to Alexander and these years and months are brought into relation with the number of kings. About both the time-period and the king-series we get the clear term: "intermediate". The number of kings applies to those who reigned between the days of Dionysus and the days of Alexander: the total of their reigns -- 6451 years and 3 months -- applies also to the period between the reigns of Dionysus and Alexander. After Dionysus ceased reigning and before Alexander started doing so we have the intermediate period. Similarly, the kings who are counted are the ones succeeding Dionysus and preceding Alexander. Indeed, Dionysus, who "was the first of all who triumphed over the vanquished Indians", must be counted as the first king over the Indians. But he is not a part of the 153 or 154 kings. Neither is Sandrocottus. If we count both of them, the king-number will be 155 or 156.

The final point to glance at is: "Which of the two king-numbers is to be accepted?" Since two authors out of three give 153 and since Arrian who correctly refers the king-series to Sandrocottus is one of them, 153 would appear to have more weight. But, when the difference of 154 from it is exceedingly small, perhaps the two serial numbers are there because of a disagreement among computers whether a certain name was to be included or not in the full tally.

In view of all our observations our job is to link Sandrocottus with an intervening chain of 153 or 154 kings to the ancient monarch of India whom the Greeks named Dionysus. By doing it we should be able to decide between Chandragupta Maurya and Chandragupta I for Sandrocottus and between the rise of the Mauryas and the rise of the Imperial Guptas for 325 or 324 B.C. The whole of ancient Indian chronology hinges on our decision apropos of the clue from Megasthenes.

Dionysus in India

Obviously, to come to a decision we must consult the Indian sources on which Megasthenes based himself. Where time-periods or king-lists are concerned, the informants of Megasthenes are very likely to have been Puranic pundits. "In fact," says D. R. Manked1 [Puranic Chronology (Anand, 1951), p. 2. ] rightly, "apart from the Puranas, there is no other source for such information." No doubt, the early Puraras were not quite in the form which we have today of this kind of literature, but there must have been many things in common and we are justified in tracing the extant Puranic documents to versions in fairly ancient times. "The early versions of the Puranas", A.D. Pusalker2 [Studies in the Epics and Puranas (Bhavan's Book University, Bombay, 1955), p. lxvi.] sums up, "existed at the period of the Bharata War and that of Megasthenes." And, like the original work of Megasthenes himself, these versions must have had a consistent tale of historico-chronological indications, which at present we can partly rebuild only by critical collation of the various reports.

Along with the Puranas there were some other traditional accounts -- the Vedas, the Brahmanas and the Epics. These too we must draw upon wherever necessary in our search for Dionysus in India.

Strictly speaking, the religious Indian analogue of Dionysus, god of wine, is Soma. Soma is apostrophised in the Rigveda as lord of the wine of delight (ananda) and immortality (amrita), pouring himself into gods and men, the deity who is also deep-hidden in the growths of the earth, waiting to be released us a rapture-flow for men and gods. In the times after the Rigveda, Soma emerges more specifically as a lunar god no less than as a king of the vegetable world with his being of nectar passing between heaven and earth through ritual and sacrifice. During those times, Soma is also regarded, in the earliest reference to the origin of kingship (Aitareya Brahmana, 1.14), as the god whom the other gods, seeking to fight the Titans (Asuras) effectively, elected as their king after having lived without a king so far. In the Satapatha Brahmana (V. 3. 3. 12; 4. 2. 3; XIII. 6. 2. 18; 7. 1. 13) the Brahmins speak of Soma as their king while common folk acknowledge an earthly monarch. The same book (XI, 4.3.9) applies to Soma the epithet (Raja-pati), "lord of kings." All this goes to suggest that Soma in ancient Indian tradition was the primeval as well as the supreme king from the religious stand-point.

But the true religious analogue of Dionysus need not be exclusively what the Greeks had in view, and we are concerned with the Indian figure whom they in the days of Alexander and Megasthenes identified with their Dionysus for various reasons, among which a strong touch of Soma, even if inevitable, might yet be only one stimulus. Besides, although Megasthenes connects wine with some religious ceremonies in India, there seems to have been in the country then no marked cult of the wine-god. The god mentioned as "Soroadeios" and interpreted to Alexander as "maker of wine" is now recognised to have been "Suryadeva", the sun-god. "Some illiterate interpreter" , E. Bevan1 [ The Cambridge History of India (1923), Vol. I, p . 422. ] explains, "must have been misled by the resemblance of Surya, 'sun', to Sura, 'wine'."

In the absence of a marked cult of Soma, the wide-spread Indian worship, which the Greeks reported, of Dionysus must indicate some other deity tinged with Soma-characteristics. The unanimous vote of scholars, bearing on Strabo's statement (XV, I) from Magasthenes that the Indians who lived on the mountains worshipped Dionysus, whereas the philosophers of the plains worshipped Heracles, is for Shiva, who was worshipped with revelry by certain hill-tribes. The pillar symbol, linga, associated popularly with Shiva as a phallus, making him a fertility god, and the bull which goes with him as his vahana, vehicle -- these two characteristics must have affirmed him still further with Dionysus who "is believed to have been originally a Thracian fertility god worshipped in the form of a bull with orgiastic rites".2 [Smaller Classical Dictionary (Everyman), p. 110, col. 2. ] and whose exoteric symbol, the phallus, was carried about in the rural festivals as well as in the mysteries.3 [The Encyclopaedia Britannica (13th Ed.), Vol. VIII, p. 287, col. 2.]

But surely when the Greeks spoke of royal history running in India from the time of Dionysus to that of Alexander and Sandrocottus, their Dionysus was a fusion of this Shiva with some legendary hero who, unlike Shiva, was celebrated as a primal king and who carried even more than Shiva a Soma-colour in some way affirming him to the wine-aspect of the Hellenic god.

The fusion is to be expected, since he was to the Greeks as much an empire-builder as a god. In the imagination of the Macedonian soldiers he was the subject of Euripides's fable -- a conqueror of the East whom they endowed with a constructive role in the remote past of India. This role bulked large in the thought of Megasthenes and it is well spotlighted by Arrian, (Indian, I, vii) drawing upon the Greek ambassador's book: "Dionysus,... when he came and conquered the people, founded cities and gave laws to these cities and introduced the use of wine among the Indians, as he had done among the Greeks, and taught them to sow the land, himself supplying seeds for the purpose... It is also said that Dionysus first yoked oxen to the plough and made many of the Indians husbandmen instead of nomads, and furnished them with the implements of agriculture; and that the Indians worship the other gods, and Dionysus himself in particular, with cymbals and drums, because he so taught them; and that he also taught them the Satyric dance, or, as the Greeks call it, the Kordax; and that he instructed the Indians to let their hair grow long in honour of the god, and to wear the turban; and that he taught them to anoint themselves with unguents, so that even up to the time of Alexander the Indians marshalled for battle to the sound of cymbals and drums." Then Arrian refers to Dionysus's departure from India after having established the new order of things and having appointed as king of the country one of his companions who was the most conversant with Bacchic matters and who subsequently reigned for 52 years. Among the cities founded by Dionysus, Arrian (Anabasis, V.I; Indica, I. 1) in company with all his fellow-annalists names only Nysa (in the Hindu Rush), so called after either Dionysus's nurse or his native mountain.

Some further points may be cited from Diodorus. Like others he (II. 38) mentions the Indian mountain "Meros" (Meru), at whose foot lay the city of Nysa, as a place where Dionysus bad been, and he links with its name the Greek legend that Dionysus was bred in his father Zeus's thigh (meros in Greek). In a few things Diodorus differs from what most authors have quoted from Megasthenes. After repeating the story of the invasion of India by Dionysus, he (ibid.) mentions Dionysus as not leaving the country after his achievements but as reigning over the whole of India for 52 years and then dying of old age while his sons succeeded to the government and transmitted the sceptre in unbroken succession to their posterity. What is more, Diodorus (III. 63) shows us that the Greeks knew of a counter-legend to the one about the entry of Dionysus into India from the west. And from this counter-legend the starter of the king-series to whom the Indians referred emerges in a clearer shape:

"Now some,... supposing that there were three individuals of this name, who lived in different ages, assign to each appropriate achievements. They say, then, the most ancient of them was Indos, and that as the country, with its genial temperature, produced spontaneously the vine-tree in great abundance, he was the first who crushed grapes and discovered the use of the properties of wine... Diouysus, then, at the head of an army, marched to every part of the world, and taught mankind the planting of the vine, and how to crush grapes in the winepress, whence he was called Lenaios. Having in like manner imparted to all a knowledge of his other inventions, he obtained after his departure from among men immortal honour from those who had benefited by his labours. It is further said that the place is pointed out in India even to this day where the god had been, and that cities are called by his name in the vernacular dialects, and that many other important evidences still exist of his having been born in India..."

There are some more details to the Dionysus-story, but all about him is not of equal importance; and those points in particular which have too clearly a Greek colour cannot be of much help to us. A few points which strike us as rather fanciful may also be passed over.

What we have mainly to match from Indian sources is an ancient human-divine personage who is a great progressive and constructive leader, no less than a conqueror -- one who is organically knit together with the country's traditional history and geography and stands deified in legend at the head of all royal successions in India.

The Three Candidates

Indian tradition shows us three human-divine personages, each of whom in an important sense is a king in the past and acted as a fundamental force of progress.

Legendary India starts with Manu Svayambhuva.1 [The Vedic Age, edited by R. G. Majumdar and A.D. Pusalker (London, 1952), pp. 270-71. ] He is reputed to have subdued all enemies, become the first king of the earth and revived the institutions of the four castes and of marriage, which had been established by his predecessor and progenitor, the deity Brahma.

With a status similar in another epoch is Manu Vaivasvata.2 [Ibid., pp. 271-72. ] He is said to be the originator of the human race and all the dynasties mentioned in the Puranas spring from him. He framed rules and laws of government, and collected a sixth of the produce of the land as a tax to meet administrative expenses. He is also famous for having saved humanity from the deluge which occurred at this time.

As a conqueror, Dionysus may be seen as resembling Svayambhuva. As a law-giver, he may be traced in Vaivasvata. As a primal king, he is more like Vaivasvata than Svayambhuva, for, though both are royal genealogy-starters in their own ways, the latter is such simply by being the first Indian -- and Dionysus, even as "Indos", was not the Adam of India. But in all his other capacities Dionysus is not at all like either Vaivasvata or Svayambhuva.

The third human-divine figure who is a primal king in Indian eyes stands in time intermediate between Svayambhuva and Vaivasvata: he is Prithu Vainya -- Prithu, the son of Vena. When we examine him, we discover that in all important respects he is the candidate par excellence for the Indian Dionysus.
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