Vol. I: The Mahavagga
edited by Hermann Oldenberg
Published with the Assistance of the Royal Academy of Berlin and the Secretary of State for India in Council
1879
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-- Vinaya Texts, Part I: The Patimokkha; The Mahavagga, I-IV, Translated From the Pali by T.W. Rhys Davids and Hermann Oldenberg, 1881
-- Vinaya Texts, Part II: The Mahavagga, V-X; The Kullavagga, I-III, Translated From the Pali by T.W. Rhys Davids and Hermann Oldenberg, 1882
-- Vinaya Texts, Part III: The Kullavagga, IV-XII, Translated From the Pali by T.W. Rhys Davids and Hermann Oldenberg, 1885
-- Mahavagga, Khandaka 6, Chapter 28, Excerpt from Vinaya (2): The Mahavagga, by T.W. Rhys Davids
...
It is possible to construct, in accordance with these facts, a working hypothesis as to the history of the literature. It is also possible to object that the evidence drawn from the Milinda may be disregarded on the ground that there is nothing to show that that work, excepting only the elaborate and stately introduction and a few of the opening chapters, is not an impudent forgery, and a late one, concocted by some Buddhist in Ceylon. So the evidence drawn from the Katha Vatthu may be disregarded on the ground that there is nothing to show that that work is not an impudent forgery, and a late one, concocted by some Buddhist in Ceylon. The evidence drawn from the inscriptions may be put aside on the ground that they do not explicitly state that the Suttantas and Nikayas to which they refer, and the passages they mention, are the same as those we now have. And the fact that the commentators point out, as peculiar, that certain passages are nearly as late, and one whole book quite as late, as Asoka, is no proof that the rest are older. It may even be maintained that the Pali Pitakas are not therefore Indian books at all: that they are all Ceylon forgeries, and should be rightly called ‘the Southern Recension’ or ‘the Simhalese Canon.'
Each of these propositions, taken by itself, has the appearance of careful scruple. And a healthy and reasonable scepticism is a valuable aid to historical criticism. But can that be said of a scepticism that involves belief in things far more incredible than those it rejects.? In one breath we are reminded of the scholastic dulness, the sectarian narrowness, the literary incapacity, even the senile imbecility of the Ceylon Buddhists. In the next we are asked to accept propositions implying that they were capable of forging extensive documents so well, with such historical accuracy, with so delicate a discrimination between ideas current among themselves and those held centuries before, with so great a literary skill in expressing the ancient views, that not only did they deceive their contemporaries and opponents, but European scholars have not been able to point out a single discrepancy in their work.1 [As is well known, the single instance of such a discrepancy, which Prof. Minayeff made so much of, is a mare's nest. The blunder is on the pert of the European professor, not of the Ceylon pandits. No critical scholar will accept the proposition that because the commentary on the Katha Vatthu mentions the Vetulyaka, therefore the Katha Vatthu itself must be later than the rise of that school.] It is not unreasonable to hesitate in adopting a scepticism which involves belief in so unique, and therefore so incredible, a performance.
The hesitation will seem the more reasonable if we consider that to accept this literature for what it purports to be — that is, as North Indian,2 [North Indian, that is, from the modern European point of view. In the books themselves the reference is to the Middle Country (Magghima Desa). To them the country to the south of the Vindhyas simply did not come into the calculation. How suggestive this is as to the real place of origin of these documents!] and for the most part pre-Asokan — not only involves no such absurdity, but is really just what one would a priori expect, just what the history of similar literatures elsewhere would lead one to suppose likely.
The Buddha, like other Indian teachers of his time, taught by conversation. A highly educated man (according to the education current at the time), speaking constantly to men of similar education, he followed the literary habit of his time by embodying his doctrines in set phrases, sutras, on which he enlarged on different occasions in different ways. In the absence of books — for though writing was widely known, the lack of writing materials made any lengthy written books impossible3 [Very probably memoranda were used. But the earliest records of any extent were the Asoka Edicts, and they had to be written on stone.] — such sutras were the recognised form of preserving and communicating opinion. These particular ones were not in Sanskrit, but in the ordinary conversational idiom of the day, that is to say, in a sort of Pali.
When the Buddha died these sayings were collected together by his disciples into the Four Great Nikayas. They cannot have reached their final form till about fifty years afterwards. Other sayings and verses, most of them ascribed not to the Buddha himself, but to the disciples, were put into a supplementary Nikaya. We know of slight additions made to this Nikaya as late as the time of Asoka. And the developed doctrine found in certain short books in it — notably in the Buddhavamsa and Kariya Pitaka, and in the Peta- and Vimana-Vatthus — show that these are later than the four old Nikayas.
For a generation or two the books as originally put together were handed down by memory. And they were doubtless accompanied from the first, as they were being taught, by a running commentary. About 100 years after the Buddha’s death there was a schism in the community. Each of the two schools kept an arrangement of the canon — still in Pali (or possibly some allied dialect). Sanskrit was not used for any Buddhist works till long afterwards, and never used at all, so far as we know, for the canonical books. Each of these two schools broke up, in the following centuries, into others; and several of them had their different arrangements of the canonical books, differing also no doubt in minor details. Even as late as the first century after the Christian Era, at the Council of Kanishka, these books, among many others then extant, remained the only authorities.1 [On the often repeated error that a Sanskrit canon was established at Kanishka’s Council, see my 'Milinda,' vol. ii, pp. xv, xvi.] But they all, except only our present Pali Nikayas, have been lost in India. Of the stock passages of ethical statement, and of early episodes, used in the composition of them, and of the Suttas now extant, numerous fragments have been preserved in the Hinayana Sanskrit texts. And some of the Suttas, and of the separate books, as used in other schools, are represented in Chinese translations of the fourth and fifth centuries A.D. A careful and detailed comparison of these remains with the Pali Nikayas, after the method adopted in Windisch’s 'Mara und Buddha,' cannot fail to throw much light on the history, and on the method of composition, of the canonical books, which in style and method, in language and contents and tone, bear all the marks of so considerable an antiquity.
Hofrath Dr. Buhler, in the last work he published, expressed the opinion that these books, as we have them in the Pali, are good evidence, certainly for the fifth, probably for the sixth, century B.C. Subject to what has been said above, that will probably become, more and more, the accepted opinion. And it is this which gives to all they tell us, either directly or by implication, of the social, political, and religious life of India, so great a value.1 [No reference has been made, in these slight and imperfect remarks, to the history of the Vinaya. There is nothing to add, on that point, to the able and lucid exposition of Prof. Oldenberg in the Introduction to his edition of the text.]
It is necessary, in spite of the limitations of our space, to add a few words on the method followed in this version. We talk of Pali books. They are not books in the modern sense. They are memorial sentences intended to be learnt by heart; and the whole style, and method of arrangement, is entirely subordinated to this primary necessity. The leading ideas in any one of our Suttantas, for instance, are expressed in short phrases not intended to convey to a European reader the argument underlying them. These are often repeated with slight variations. But neither the repetitions nor the variations — introduced, and necessarily introduced, as aids to memory — help the modern reader very much. That of course was not their object. For the object they were intended to serve they are singularly well chosen, and aptly introduced.
Other expedients were adopted with a similar aim. Ideas were formulated, not in logically co-ordinated sentences, but in numbered groups; and lists were drawn up such as those found in the tract called the Silas, and in the passage on the rejected forms of asceticism, both translated below. These groups and lists, again, must have been accompanied from the first by a running verbal commentary, given, in his own words, by the teacher to his pupils. Without such a comment they are often quite unintelligible, and always difficult.
The inclusion of such memoria technica [memory technique] makes the Four Nikayas strikingly different from modern treatises on ethics or psychology. As they stand they were never intended to be read. And a version in English, repeating all the repetitions, rendering each item in the lists and groups as they stand, by a single English word, without commentary, would quite fail to convey the meaning, often intrinsically interesting, always historically valuable, of these curious old documents.
It is no doubt partly the result of the burden of such memoria technica, but partly also owing to the methods of exposition then current in North India, that the leading theses of each Suttanta are not worked out in the way in which we should expect to find similar theses worked out now in Europe. A proposition or two or three, are put forward, re-stated with slight additions or variations, and placed as it were in contrast with the contrary proposition (often at first put forward by the interlocutor). There the matter is usually left. There is no elaborate logical argument. The choice is offered to the hearer; and, of course, he usually accepts the proposition as maintained by the Buddha. The statement of this is often so curt, enigmatic, and even —owing not seldom simply to our ignorance, as yet, of the exact force of the technical terms used — so ambiguous, that a knowledge of the state of opinion on the particular point, in North India, at the time, or a comparison of other Nikaya passages on the subject, is necessary to remove the uncertainty.
It would seem therefore most desirable that a scholar attempting to render these Suttantas into a European language — evolved in the process of expressing a very different, and often contradictory, set of conceptions — should give the reasons of the faith that is in him. He should state why he holds such and such an expression to be the least inappropriate rendering: and quote parallel passages from other Nikaya texts in support of his reasons. He should explain the real significance of the thesis put forward by a statement of what, in his opinion, was the point of view from which it was put forward, the stage of opinion into which it fits, the current views it supports or controverts. In regard to technical terms, for which there can be no exact equivalent, he should give the Pali. And in regard to the mnemonic lists and groups, each word in which is usually a crux, he should give cross-references, and wherever he ventures to differ from the Buddhist explanations, as handed down in the schools, should state the fact, and give his reasons. It is only by such discussions that we can hope to make progress in the interpretation of the history of Buddhist and Indian thought. Bare versions are of no use to scholars, and even to the general reader they can only convey loose, inadequate, and inaccurate ideas. [/b][/size]
These considerations will, I trust, meet with the approval of my fellow workers. Each scholar would of course, in considering the limitations of his space, make a different choice as to the points he regarded most pressing to dwell upon in his commentary, as to the points he would leave to explain themselves. It may, I am afraid, be considered that my choice in these respects has not been happy, and especially that too many words or phrases have been left without comment, where reasons were necessary. But I have endeavoured, in the notes and introductions, to emphasise those points on which further elucidation is desirable; and to raise some of the most important of those historical questions which will have to be settled before these Suttantas can finally be considered as having been rightly understood.
-- Dialogues of the Buddha, translated from the Pali of the Digha Nikaya by T.W. Rhys Davids
The Mahavagga, which the Editor deemed desirable to publish first, is, in India, reckoned as the Third Part of the Whole Pitaka.
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.]
-- Mahavagga, Khandaka 6, Chapter 28, Excerpt from Vinaya (2): The Mahavagga, by T.W. Rhys Davids
Presented by Dr. R.C. Majumdar
Contents: [PDF HERE]
• Introduction, pp. ix— lvi.
The Mahavagga.
• I. The Admission to the Order of Bhikkhus. pp. 1-100.
o 1-24. The first events after Gotama’s attaining Buddhahood. (1-4. His sojourn near the Bodhi tree.—5. Brahma Sahampati exhorts him to preach the Doctrine.—6. He addresses the Pancavaggiya Bhikkhus.—7-10. Story of Yasa, his relations and friends.—11. Mara appears unto Buddha.—12. Regulations about the Pabbajja and Upasampada Ordinations. —13. Mara again appears. —14. Story of the Bhaddavaggiya.—15-20. Conversion of the three Kassapas and their Disciples.—21. Buddha propounds the Adittapariyaya.—22. Buddha’s first meeting with King Bimbisara.—23-24. Conversion of Sariputta and Moggallana.)
o 25-27. Different Rules regarding the Duties of Upajjhaya and Saddhiviharika.—28-31. Ceremony of Upasampada. —32-35. The duties of Acariya and Antevasika.—36-37. What Bhikkhus are qualified for being Acariya or Upajjhaya.—38. Admission of those who had previously been attached to another Congregation (annatitthiyapubba).— 39-79. Further Rules regarding the Pabbajja and Upasampada Ordinations. Different classes of those who are not to be admitted to the Fraternity.
• II. The Uposatha Ceremony and the Patimokkha. pp. 101-136
o (6-13. Consecration of the Boundaries for a Bhikkhu Community.)
• III. Residence during the Rainy Season (vassa). pp. 137-156.
• IV. The Pavarana Ceremony at the end of Vassa. pp. 157-178.
• V. Different Rules, especially regarding the Use of Articles made of Skin. pp. 179-198.
o 1-8, 12. Shoes and Slippers.—9-11. Different kinds of Seats, Vehicles. —13. Indulgences for the Countries bordering on Majjhadesa (story of Sona Kutikanna).
• VI. Medicaments, pp. 199-252.
o 1-17. Different kinds of Medicaments. Rules how to prepare, to use, and to keep them. (15. Story of Pilindavacchu.) —17-21. Different kinds of Food. How to prepare and to keep them.—22. Surgical Operations.— 23. Story of Suppiya. Prohibition regarding man’s flesh and the meat of different animals.—24. Sermon about rice gruel (yagu).—25-40. Different Rules about Food; how to prepare, to take, and to keep it.—(28. Buddha’s visit to Pataliputta.—29. Visit to Kotigama.—30. His meeting with Ambapall and the Licchavis.—31. Story of Siha.—34. Story of Mendaka.—35. Story of Keniya.— 36. Story of Roja.)
• VII. The Kathina Ceremonies, pp. 253-267.
• VIII. Dress of Bhikkus. pp. 268-311.
o (1. Story of Jivaka.—15. Story of Visakha.—26-27. Rules regarding the attendants of sick Bhikkhus.)
• IX. Validity and Invalidity of Ecclesiastical Acts. pp. 312-336.
• X. Schisms among the Fraternity. pp. 337-360.
o (2. Story of Dighavu).