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Henri Cordier
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/14/21

CHAPTER XV. THE SAME CONTINUED. THE HISTORY OF SAGAMONI BORCAN [SAKYA-MUNI] AND THE BEGINNING OF IDOLATRY.

Furthermore you must know that in the Island of Seilan [Ceylon] there is an exceeding high mountain; it rises right up so steep and precipitous that no one could ascend it, were it not that they have taken and fixed to it several great and massive iron chains, so disposed that by help of these men are able to mount to the top. And I tell you they say that on this mountain is the sepulchre of Adam our first parent; at least that is what the Saracens [Arab Muslims] say. But the Idolaters say that it is the sepulchre of SAGAMONI BORCAN, before whose time there were no idols. They hold him to have been the best of men, a great saint in fact, according to their fashion, and the first in whose name idols were made.[NOTE 1]

He was the son, as their story goes, of a great and wealthy king. And he was of such an holy temper that he would never listen to any worldly talk, nor would he consent to be king. And when the father saw that his son would not be king, nor yet take any part in affairs, he took it sorely to heart. And first he tried to tempt him with great promises, offering to crown him king, and to surrender all authority into his hands. The son, however, would none of his offers; so the father was in great trouble, and all the more that he had no other son but him, to whom he might bequeath the kingdom at his own death. So, after taking thought on the matter, the King caused a great palace to be built, and placed his son therein, and caused him to be waited on there by a number of maidens, the most beautiful that could anywhere be found. And he ordered them to divert themselves with the prince, night and day, and to sing and dance before him, so as to draw his heart towards worldly enjoyments. But 'twas all of no avail, for none of those maidens could ever tempt the king's son to any wantonness, and he only abode the firmer in his chastity, leading a most holy life, after their manner thereof. And I assure you he was so staid a youth that he had never gone out of the palace, and thus he had never seen a dead man, nor any one who was not hale and sound; for the father never allowed any man that was aged or infirm to come into his presence. It came to pass however one day that the young gentleman took a ride, and by the roadside he beheld a dead man. The sight dismayed him greatly, as he never had seen such a sight before. Incontinently he demanded of those who were with him what thing that was? and then they told him it was a dead man. "How, then," quoth the king's son, "do all men die?" "Yea, forsooth," said they. Whereupon the young gentleman said never a word, but rode on right pensively. And after he had ridden a good way he fell in with a very aged man who could no longer walk, and had not a tooth in his head, having lost all because of his great age. And when the king's son beheld this old man he asked what that might mean, and wherefore the man could not walk? Those who were with him replied that it was through old age the man could walk no longer, and had lost all his teeth. And so when the king's son had thus learned about the dead man and about the aged man, he turned back to his palace and said to himself that he would abide no longer in this evil world, but would go in search of Him Who dieth not, and Who had created him.[NOTE 2]

So what did he one night but take his departure from the palace privily, and betake himself to certain lofty and pathless mountains. And there he did abide, leading a life of great hardship and sanctity, and keeping great abstinence, just as if he had been a Christian. Indeed, an he had but been so, he would have been a great saint of Our Lord Jesus Christ, so good and pure was the life he led.[NOTE 3] And when he died they found his body and brought it to his father. And when the father saw dead before him that son whom he loved better than himself, he was near going distraught with sorrow. And he caused an image in the similitude of his son to be wrought in gold and precious stones, and caused all his people to adore it. And they all declared him to be a god; and so they still say. [NOTE 4]

They tell moreover that he hath died fourscore and four times. The first time he died as a man, and came to life again as an ox; and then he died as an ox and came to life again as a horse, and so on until he had died fourscore and four times; and every time he became some kind of animal. But when he died the eighty-fourth time they say he became a god. And they do hold him for the greatest of all their gods. And they tell that the aforesaid image of him was the first idol that the Idolaters ever had; and from that have originated all the other idols. And this befel in the Island of Seilan [Ceylon] in India.

The Idolaters come thither on pilgrimage from very long distances and with great devotion, just as Christians go to the shrine of Messer Saint James in Gallicia. And they maintain that the monument on the mountain is that of the king's son, according to the story I have been telling you; and that the teeth, and the hair, and the dish that are there were those of the same king's son, whose name was Sagamoni Borcan, or Sagamoni the Saint. But the Saracens also come thither on pilgrimage in great numbers, and they say that it is the sepulchre of Adam our first father, and that the teeth, and the hair, and the dish were those of Adam.[NOTE 5]

Whose they were in truth, God knoweth; howbeit, according to the Holy Scripture of our Church, the sepulchre of Adam is not in that part of the world.

Now it befel that the Great Kaan heard how on that mountain there was the sepulchre of our first father Adam, and that some of his hair and of his teeth, and the dish from which he used to eat, were still preserved there. So he thought he would get hold of them somehow or another, and despatched a great embassy for the purpose, in the year of Christ, 1284. The ambassadors, with a great company, travelled on by sea and by land until they arrived at the island of Seilan [Ceylon], and presented themselves before the king. And they were so urgent with him that they succeeded in getting two of the grinder teeth, which were passing great and thick; and they also got some of the hair, and the dish from which that personage used to eat, which is of a very beautiful green porphyry. And when the Great Kaan's ambassadors had attained the object for which they had come they were greatly rejoiced, and returned to their lord. And when they drew near to the great city of Cambaluc, where the Great Kaan was staying, they sent him word that they had brought back that for which he had sent them. On learning this the Great Kaan was passing glad, and ordered all the ecclesiastics and others to go forth to meet these reliques, which he was led to believe were those of Adam.

And why should I make a long story of it? In sooth, the whole population of Cambaluc went forth to meet those reliques, and the ecclesiastics took them over and carried them to the Great Kaan, who received them with great joy and reverence.[NOTE 6] And they find it written in their Scriptures that the virtue of that dish is such that if food for one man be put therein it shall become enough for five men: and the Great Kaan averred that he had proved the thing and found that it was really true.[NOTE 7]

So now you have heard how the Great Kaan came by those reliques; and a mighty great treasure it did cost him! The reliques being, according to the Idolaters, those of that king's son.

NOTE 1.—Sagamoni Borcan is, as [William] Marsden points out, SAKYA-MUNI, or Gautama-Buddha, with the affix BURKHAN, or "Divinity," which is used by the Mongols as the synonym of Buddha.

NOTE 2.—The general correctness with which Marco has here related the legendary history of Sakya's devotion to an ascetic life, as the preliminary to his becoming the Buddha or Divinely Perfect Being, shows what a strong impression the tale had made upon him. He is, of course, wrong in placing the scene of the history in Ceylon, though probably it was so told him, as the vulgar in all Buddhist countries do seem to localise the legends in regions known to them.

Sakya Sinha, Sakya Muni, or Gautama, originally called Siddhárta, was the son of Súddhodhana, the Kshatriya prince of Kapilavastu, a small state north of the Ganges, near the borders of Oudh. His high destiny had been foretold, as well as the objects that would move him to adopt the ascetic life. To keep these from his knowledge, his father caused three palaces to be built, within the limits of which the prince should pass the three seasons of the year, whilst guards were posted to bar the approach of the dreaded objects. But these precautions were defeated by inevitable destiny and the power of the Devas.

When the prince was sixteen he was married to the beautiful Yasodhara, daughter of the King of Koli, and 40,000 other princesses also became the inmates of his harem.

"Whilst living in the midst of the full enjoyment of every kind of pleasure, Siddhárta one day commanded his principal charioteer to prepare his festive chariot; and in obedience to his commands four lily-white horses were yoked. The prince leaped into the chariot, and proceeded towards a garden at a little distance from the palace, attended by a great retinue. On his way he saw a decrepit old man, with broken teeth, grey locks, and a form bending towards the ground, his trembling steps supported by a staff (a Deva had taken this form)…. The prince enquired what strange figure it was that he saw; and he was informed that it was an old man. He then asked if the man was born so, and the charioteer answered that he was not, as he was once young like themselves. 'Are there,' said the prince, 'many such beings in the world?' 'Your highness,' said the charioteer, 'there are many.' The prince again enquired, 'Shall I become thus old and decrepit?' and he was told that it was a state at which all beings must arrive."

The prince returns home and informs his father of his intention to become an ascetic, seeing how undesirable is life tending to such decay. His father conjures him to put away such thoughts, and to enjoy himself with his princesses, and he strengthens the guards about the palaces. Four months later like circumstances recur, and the prince sees a leper, and after the same interval a dead body in corruption. Lastly, he sees a religious recluse, radiant with peace and tranquillity, and resolves to delay no longer. He leaves his palace at night, after a look at his wife Yasodhara and the boy just born to him, and betakes himself to the forests of Magadha, where he passes seven years in extreme asceticism. At the end of that time he attains the Buddhahood. (See Hardy's Manual p. 151 seqq.) The latter part of the story told by Marco, about the body of the prince being brought to his father, etc., is erroneous. Sakya was 80 years of age when he died under the sál trees in Kusinára...

NOTE 6.—The Pâtra, or alms-pot, was the most valued legacy of Buddha. It had served the three previous Buddhas of this world-period, and was destined to serve the future one, Maitreya. The Great Asoka sent it to Ceylon. Thence it was carried off by a Tamul chief in the 1st century, A.D., but brought back we know not how, and is still shown in the Malagawa Vihara at Kandy. As usual in such cases, there were rival reliques, for Fa-hian found the alms-pot preserved at Pesháwar. Hiuen Tsang says in his time it was no longer there, but in Persia. And indeed the Pâtra from Pesháwar, according to a remarkable note by Sir Henry Rawlinson, is still preserved at Kandahár, under the name of Kashkul (or the Begging-pot), and retains among the Mussulman Dervishes the sanctity and miraculous repute which it bore among the Buddhist Bhikshus. Sir Henry conjectures that the deportation of this vessel, the palladium of the true Gandhára (Pesháwar), was accompanied by a popular emigration, and thus accounts for the transfer of that name also to the chief city of Arachosia. (Koeppen, I. 526; Fah-hian, p. 36; H. Tsang, II. 106; J.R.A.S. XI. 127.)

Sir E. Tennent, through Mr. Wylie (to whom this book owes so much), obtained the following curious Chinese extract referring to Ceylon (written 1350): "In front of the image of Buddha there is a sacred bowl, which is neither made of jade nor copper, nor iron; it is of a purple colour, and glossy, and when struck it sounds like glass. At the commencement of the Yuen Dynasty (i.e. under Kúblái) three separate envoys were sent to obtain it." Sanang Setzen also corroborates Marco's statement: "Thus did the Khaghan (Kúblái) cause the sun of religion to rise over the dark land of the Mongols; he also procured from India images and reliques of Buddha; among others the Pâtra of Buddha, which was presented to him by the four kings (of the cardinal points), and also the chandana chu" (a miraculous sandal-wood image). (Tennent, I. 622; Schmidt, p. 119.)

The text also says that several teeth of Buddha were preserved in Ceylon, and that the Kaan's embassy obtained two molars. Doubtless the envoys were imposed on; no solitary case in the amazing history of that relique, for the Dalada, or tooth relique, seems in all historic times to have been unique. This, "the left canine tooth" of the Buddha, is related to have been preserved for 800 years at Dantapura ("Odontopolis"), in Kalinga, generally supposed to be the modern Púri or Jagannáth. Here the Brahmans once captured it and carried it off to Palibothra, where they tried in vain to destroy it. Its miraculous resistance converted the king, who sent it back to Kalinga. About A.D. 311 the daughter of King Guhasiva fled with it to Ceylon. In the beginning of the 14th century it was captured by the Tamuls and carried to the Pandya country on the continent, but recovered some years later by King Parakrama III., who went in person to treat for it. In 1560 the Portuguese got possession of it and took it to Goa. The King of Pegu, who then reigned, probably the most powerful and wealthy monarch who has ever ruled in Further India, made unlimited offers in exchange for the tooth; but the archbishop prevented the viceroy from yielding to these temptations, and it was solemnly pounded to atoms by the prelate, then cast into a charcoal fire, and finally its ashes thrown into the river of Goa.

The King of Pegu was, however, informed by a crafty minister of the King of Ceylon that only a sham tooth had been destroyed by the Portuguese, and that the real relique was still safe. This he obtained by extraordinary presents, and the account of its reception at Pegu, as quoted by Tennent from De Couto, is a curious parallel to Marco's narrative of the Great Kaan's reception of the Ceylon reliques at Cambaluc. The extraordinary object still so solemnly preserved at Kandy is another forgery, set up about the same time. So the immediate result of the viceroy's virtue was that two reliques were worshipped instead of one!

The possession of the tooth has always been a great object of desire to Buddhist sovereigns. In the 11th century King Anarauhta, of Burmah, sent a mission to Ceylon to endeavour to procure it, but he could obtain only a "miraculous emanation" of the relique. A tower to contain the sacred tooth was (1855), however, one of the buildings in the palace court of Amarapura. A few years ago the King of Burma repeated the mission of his remote predecessor, but obtained only a model, and this has been deposited within the walls of the palace at Mandalé, the new capital. (Turnour in J.A.S.B. VI. 856 seqq.; Koeppen, I. 521; Tennent, I. 388, II. 198 seqq.; MS. Note by Sir A. Phayre; Mission to Ava, 136.)

Of the four eye-teeth of Sakya, one, it is related, passed to the heaven of Indra; the second to the capital of Gandhára; the third to Kalinga; the fourth to the snake-gods. The Gandhára tooth was perhaps, like the alms-bowl, carried off by a Sassanid invasion, and may be identical with that tooth of Fo, which the Chinese annals state to have been brought to China in A.D. 530 by a Persian embassy. A tooth of Buddha is now shown in a monastery at Fu-chau; but whether this be either the Sassanian present, or that got from Ceylon by Kúblái, is unknown. Other teeth of Buddha were shown in Hiuen Tsang's time at Balkh, at Nagarahára (or Jalálábád), in Kashmir, and at Kanauj. (Koeppen, u.s.; Fortune, II. 108; H. Tsang, II. 31, 80, 263.)

[Illustration: Teeth of Budda. 1. At Kandy, after Tennent. 2. At Fu-Chau from Fortune.]

NOTE 7.—Fa-hian writes of the alms-pot at Pesháwar, that poor people could fill it with a few flowers, whilst a rich man should not be able to do so with 100, nay, with 1000 or 10,000 bushels of rice; a parable doubtless originally carrying a lesson, like Our Lord's remark on the widow's mite, but which hardened eventually into some foolish story like that in the text.

The modern Mussulman story at Kandahar is that the alms-pot will contain any quantity of liquor without overflowing.

This Pâtra is the Holy Grail of Buddhism. Mystical powers of nourishment are ascribed also to the Grail in the European legends. German scholars have traced in the romances of the Grail remarkable indications of Oriental origin. It is not impossible that the alms-pot of Buddha was the prime source of them. Read the prophetic history of the Pâtra as Fa-hian heard it in India (p. 161); its mysterious wanderings over Asia till it is taken up into the heaven Tushita where Maitreya the Future Buddha dwells. When it has disappeared from earth the Law gradually perishes, and violence and wickedness more and more prevail:

—"What is it?
The phantom of a cup that comes and goes?
* * * * * If a man
Could touch or see it, he was heal'd at once,
By faith, of all his ills. But then the times
Grew to such evil that the holy cup
Was caught away to Heaven, and disappear'd."
—Tennyson's Holy Grail

...

In a paper on Burkhan printed in the Journal of the American Oriental Society, XXXVI., 1917, pp. 390-395, Dr. Berthold Laufer has come to the following conclusion: "Burkhan in Mongol by no means conveys exclusively the limited notion of Buddha, but, first of all, signifies 'deity, god, gods,' and secondly 'representation or image of a god.' This general significance neither inheres in the term Buddha nor in Chinese Fo; neither do the latter signify 'image of Buddha'; only Mongol burkhan has this force, because originally it conveyed the meaning of a shamanistic image. From what has been observed on the use of the word burkhan in the shamanistic or pre-Buddhistic religions of the Tungusians, Mongols and Turks, it is manifest that the word well existed there before the arrival of Buddhism, fixed in its form and meaning, and was but subsequently transferred to the name of Buddha."

-- The Travels of Marco Polo, by Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

Henri Cordier
Portrait of Henri Cordier at work, by Gustave Caillebotte (1883)
Born: 8 August 1849, New Orleans, Louisiana, United States
Died: 16 March 1925 (aged 75), Paris, France
Known for East Asian studies

Henri Cordier (8 August 1849 – 16 March 1925) was a French linguist, historian, ethnographer, author, editor and Orientalist. He was President of the Société de Géographie (French, "Geographical Society") in Paris.[1] Cordier was a prominent figure in the development of East Asian and Central Asian scholarship in Europe in the late 19th and early 20th century. Though he had little actual knowledge of the Chinese language, Cordier had a particularly strong impact on the development of Chinese scholarship, and was a mentor of the noted French sinologist Édouard Chavannes.

Early life

Cordier was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in the United States. He arrived in France in 1852; and his family moved to Paris in 1855. He was educated at the Collège Chaptal and in England.[2]

In 1869 at age 20, he sailed for Shanghai, where he worked at an English bank. During the next two years, he published several articles in local newspapers. In 1872, he was made librarian of the North China branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. In this period, about twenty articles were published in Shanghai Evening Courier, North China Daily News, and Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society.[2]

Career

In 1876, he was named secretary of a Chinese government program for Chinese students studying in Europe.[2]

In Paris, Cordier was a professor at l'École spéciale des Langues orientales, which is known today as the Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations (L’Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales, INALCO).[3] He joined the faculty in 1881; and he was a professor from 1881-1925.[2] He contributed a number of articles to the Catholic Encyclopedia.[4]

Cordier was also a professeur at l'École Libre des Sciences Politiques, which is today known as the National Foundation of Political Studies (Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques) and the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris).[3]

Contributions to Sinology

Although he had only a slight knowledge of the language, Cordier made major contributions to Sinology.

"Cordier," as the Bibliotheca Sinica "is sometimes affectionately referred to," is "the standard enumerative bibliography" of 70,000 works on China up to 1921. Even though the author did not know Chinese, he was thorough and highly familiar with European publications. Endymion Wilkinson also praises Cordier for including the full titles, often the tables of contents, and reviews of most books.[5]

Cordier was a founding editor of T'oung Pao, which was the first international journal of Chinese Studies. Along with Gustaaf Schlegel, he helped to establish the prominent sinological journal T'oung Pao in 1890.[3]

Honors

• Royal Asiatic Society, honorary member, 1893.[2]
• Royal Geographical Society, corresponding member, 1908.[2]
• Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres, member, 1908.[2]
• Société Asiatique, vice-president, 1918-1925.[2]
• Société de Géographie, President, 1924-1925.[1]

Selected works

Cordier's published writings encompass 1,033 works in 1,810 publications in 13 languages and 7,984 library holdings.[6]

• Bibliotheca sinica. Dictionnaire bibliographique des ouvrages relatifs à l'Empire chinois, Vol. 1; Vol. 2. (1878-1895)
• Bibliographie des œuvres de Beaumarchais (1883)
• La France en Chine au XVIIIe siècle: documents inédits/publiés sur les manuscrits conservés au dépôt des affaires étrangères, avec une introduction et des notes (1883)
• Mémoire sur la Chine adressé à Napoléon Ier: mélanges, Vol. 1; Vol. 2; by F. Renouard de Ste-Croix, edited by Henri Cordier. (1895-1905)
• Les Origines de deux établissements français dans l'Extrême-Orient: Chang-Haï, Ning-Po, documents inédits, publiés, avec une introduction et des notes (1896)
• La Révolution en Chine: les origines (1900)
• Conférence sur les relations de la Chine avec l'Europe. (1901)
• L'Imprimerie sino-européenne en Chine: bibliographie des ouvrages publiés en Chine par les Européens au XVIIe et au XVIIIe siècle. (1901)
• Dictionnaire bibliographique des ouvrages relatifs à l'Empire chinois: bibliotheca sinica, Vol. 1; Vol. 2; Vol. 3; Vol. 4. (1904-1907)
• The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 with Henry Yule (1903)
• Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 (1910)
• L'Expédition de Chine de 1860, histoire diplomatique, notes et documents (1906)
• Bibliotheca Indosinica. Dictionnaire bibliographique des ouvrages relatifs à la péninsule indochinoise (1912)
• Bibliotheca Japonica. Dictionnaire bibliographique des ouvrages relatifs à l'empire Japonais rangés par ordre chronologique jusqu'à 1870 (1912)
• Mémoires Concernant l'Asie Orientale : vol.1 Mémoires Concernant l'Asie Orientale : vol.2 Mémoires Concernant l'Asie Orientale : vol.3 (1913)
• Le Voyage à la Chine au XVIIIe siècle. Extrait du journal de M. Bouvet, commandant le vaisseau de la Compagnie des Indes le Villevault (1765-1766) (1913)
• Cathay and the Way Thither: being a Collection of Medieval Notices of China (1913)
• Bibliographie stendhalienne (1914)
• La Suppression de la compagnie de Jésus et la mission de Péking (1918)
• The travels of Marco Polo (1920), with Henry Yule
• Histoire générale de la Chine et de ses relations avec les pays étrangers: depuis les temps les plus anciens jusqu'à la chute de la dynastie Mandchoue, Vol. I, Depuis les temps les plus anciens jusqu'à la chute de la dynastie T'ang (907); Vol. 2, Depuis les cinq dynasties (907) jusqu'à la chute des Mongols (1368); Vol. 3, Depuis l'avènement des Mings (1368) jusqu'à la mort de Kia K'ing (1820); Vol. 4, Depuis l'avènement de Tao Kouang (1821) jusqu'à l'époque actuelle. (1920-1921)
• La Chine. (1921)
• La Chine en France au XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1910)
• Chine : vol.1

Notes

1. La Société de Géographie Archived 2007-02-07 at the Wayback Machine, List of Presidents Archived 2010-07-02 at the Wayback Machine
2. Aurousseau, L. (1925). Nécrologie, Henri Cordier," Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient, Vol. 25, Issue 25, pp. 279-286.
3. T'oung Pao, Vol. I, first issue cover page, 1890.
4. "Cordier, Henri", The Catholic Encyclopedia and Its Makers, New York, the Encyclopedia Press, 1917, p. 34 This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
5. Endymion Wilkinson. Chinese History: A New Manual. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series, 2013 ISBN 9780674067158) p. 986
6. WorldCat Identities Archived 2010-12-30 at the Wayback Machine: Cordier, Henri 1849-1925

References

• Cordier, Henri. (1892). Half a Decade of Chinese studies (1886-1891). Leyden: E.J. Brill. OCLC 2174926
• Pelliot, Paul (1925). "Henri Cordier (1849-1925)". T'oung Pao (in French). 24 (1): 1–15. doi:10.1163/156853226X00011. JSTOR 4526773.
• Ross, E. Denison (1925). "M. Henri Cordier". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (3): 571–2. JSTOR 25220805.
• Yetts, W. Perceval (1925). "Obituary – Professor Henri Cordier". Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London. 3 (4): 855–6. doi:10.1017/S0041977X00000781. JSTOR 607118.
• Ting Chang, “Crowdsourcing avant la lettre: Henri Cordier and French Sinology, ca. 1875–1925”, L'Esprit créateur, Volume 56, Number 3, Fall 2016, Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 47-60.

External links

• T’oung Pao Brill's official website
• Works by Henri Cordier at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Henri Cordier at Internet Archive
• Downloadable issues of T'oung pao

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Royal Asiatic Society China
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/14/21

The Royal Asiatic Society China is a learned society based in Shanghai and Beijing, China.

It was established in Shanghai in 1857 by a small group of British and American expatriates as the Shanghai Literary and Scientific Society, and within a year had achieved affiliation with the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland and become the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (NCBRAS). However, following the death of the society's first president, American missionary Elijah Coleman Bridgman, in 1861 the society became moribund, but was rescued in 1864 by Sir Harry Smith Parkes, the British Consul.[1]

The Society’s stated intention was to study and disseminate knowledge of China and surrounding nations by publishing a journal and establishing a library and museum. The first journal was published in 1858 and thereafter for 90 years. The Society’s original home comprised a ground-floor reading room, library and lecture hall, but was expanded in 1874 to house a museum on the floor above. In 1930 the building was condemned and although funds were raised to build new premises, the Great Depression and the second Sino-Japanese war conspired to prevent any progress. Although the society struggled on it was finally wound up in 1952. The book collection went to the Shanghai Library and most of the museum exhibits to the Shanghai Natural History Museum.

In 2006 the society was re-established in Hangzhou and transferred to Shanghai the following year as the Royal Asiatic Society in Shanghai. The Journal has been resurrected and a growing library and museum opened to members and scholars.

In 2013 a chapter was established in Beijing as the Royal Asiatic Society in Beijing.

Presidents

North China Branch of the RAS 1857-1952

• 1857–1861: Rev Elijah Coleman Bridgman
• ?1859–: Thomas Taylor Meadows [2]
• 1864–: Harry Smith Parkes[3]
• c.1885: Herbert Allen Giles
• c.1910 Sir Pelham Warren [4]
• 1911: John Calvin Ferguson [5]
• 1913–1919: Sir Everard H. Fraser
• 1919–: Arthur Stanley
• 1935–1940: Arthur de Carle Sowerby [6]

RAS China in Shanghai 2007-

• 2007–2011: Peter Hibbard
• 2011-2013: Katy Gow
• 2013–: Nenad Djordjevic

References

1. "About Ras". Royal Asiatic Society in Shanghai. Retrieved 7 January 2017.
2. http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/rct/pdf/abstracts/YUqiong.pdf
3. Smith, Carl. Chinese Christians: Elites, Middlemen, and the Church in Hong Kong. p. xxvii.
4. The Directory & Chronicle for China, Japan, Corea, Indo-China, Straits. p. 905.
5. Netting, Lara. A Perpetual Fire: John C. Ferguson and His Quest for Chinese Art and Culture. p. 43.
6. "NATURALIST, AUTHOR, ARTIST, EXPLORER AND EDITOR AND AN ALMOST FORGOTTEN PRESIDENT: Arthur de Carle Sowerby 1885 - 1954: President of the North China Branch of The Royal Asiatic Society 1935 - 1940". JSTOR 23889812.

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Sándor Kőrösi Csoma [Kőrösi Csoma Sándor] [Alexander Csoma De Koros]
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/14/21


Alexander Csoma de Kőrös
Born: Sándor Csoma, 27 March 1784[1], Kőrös, Grand Principality of Transylvania (today part of Covasna, Romania)
Died: 11 April 1842 (aged 58), Darjeeling, Colonial India
Occupation: Linguist, philologist, traveller

Sándor Csoma de Kőrös (Hungarian: [ˈʃaːndor ˈkøːrøʃi ˈt͡ʃomɒ]; born Sándor Csoma; 27 March 1784/8[1] – 11 April 1842) was a Hungarian philologist and Orientalist, author of the first Tibetan–English dictionary and grammar book. He was called Phyi-glin-gi-grwa-pa in Tibetan, meaning "the foreign pupil", and was declared a bosatsu or bodhisattva by the Japanese in 1933.[2] He was born in Kőrös, Grand Principality of Transylvania (today part of Covasna, Romania). His birth date is often given as 4 April, although this is actually his baptism day and the year of his birth is debated by some authors who put it at 1787 or 1788 rather than 1784. The Magyar ethnic group, the Székelys, to which he belonged believed that they were derived from a branch of Attila's Huns who had settled in Transylvania in the fifth century. Hoping to study the claim and to find the place of origin of the Székelys and the Magyars by studying language kinship, he set off to Asia in 1820 and spent his lifetime studying the Tibetan language and Buddhist philosophy. Csoma de Kőrös is considered as the founder of Tibetology. He was said to have been able to read in seventeen languages. He died in Darjeeling while attempting to make a trip to Lhasa in 1842 and a memorial was erected in his honour by the Asiatic Society of Bengal.

Biography

Youth in Transylvania

Csoma de Kőrös was born into a poor Székely family,[3] the sixth child of András Csoma and his wife, Krisztina Getse (or Ilona Göcz?).[4] His name in English would be written Alexander Csoma of Koros and in Hungarian Kőrösi Csoma Sándor where Kőrösi means "of Koros" (i.e., a praedicatum of nobility) and alternate continental forms include "Sándor Csoma de Koros". His father served with the Székely Border Guards. His early schooling was at the local village school. In 1799, he went to Nagyenyed (present-day Aiud) to join the boarding school Bethlen Kollégium. The education program was free (gratistae) in return for manual labor. Here he was influenced by the professor Samuel Hegedüs. He left the school in 1807 and continued university studies, taking an interest in history, a subject made popular by Professor Ádám Herepei.[4] In 1815 he passed the public rigorosum in his studies at Bethlen Kollégium. A scholarship allowed him to continue to Göttingen, where he began to learn English under Professor Fiorillo. Csoma de Kőrős also came under the influence of Professor Johann Gottfried Eichhorn.

Studies in Göttingen


Bust presented by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences to the Asiatic Society of Bengal

Between 1816 and 1818 he studied Oriental languages. In Göttingen, he was noted for being literate in thirteen languages including Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, German, and Romanian apart from his native Hungarian. In his Calcutta years he also mastered Bengali, Marathi and Sanskrit.[5] He returned to Transylvania in 1818. On 7 February 1819, Csoma met Hegedűs and informed him of his intent to learn Slavonic in Croatia. He left on foot for Agram and spent a few months there. He received the aid of one hundred florins from Michael de Kenderessy to help him in this journey.[4]

Eastward bound

The journey that Csoma undertook after leaving Croatia is reconstructed mainly from to a letter that Csoma wrote introducing himself to the British Captain Kennedy who detained him on entry at Sabathu on suspicion of being a spy. Csoma did not apply for an Imperial passport and obtained a Hungarian passport at Nagy Enyed and visited Bucharest. He had it signed by the General Commandant in Hermannstadt (today Sibiu) and went to Wallachia at the end of November 1819. He attempted to go to Constantinople but not finding the means he left Bucharest on 1 January 1820 and passed the Danube by Rustchuk and reached Sofia and then after five days to Philipopolis (now Plovdiv).[4]

Middle East, Central Asia


Route taken by Csoma


Statue of Alexander Csoma de Koros riding a yak

Csoma de Kőrös arrived in Edirne (Adrianopolis) and he wished to go from there to Constantinople but was forced by a plague outbreak to move to Enos. He left Enos on 7 February 1820 and reached Alexandria on a Greek ship. He reached on the last day of February but had to leave soon due to a plague epidemic. He boarded a Syrian ship to Larnaca in Cyprus and then took another ship to Tripoli and Latakia. From here he travelled on foot and reached Aleppo in Syria on 13 April. He left on 19 May, joining various caravans and by raft along the river going through Urfa, Mardin and Mosul to arrive in Baghdad on 22 July. He wrote to the British resident Mr. [Claudius] Rich and sought help in his travels. He was provided a European dress and money through a Hungarian friend Mr. Swoboda with whom he stayed.

Claudius James Rich (28 March 1787 – 5 October 1821) was a British business agent, traveller and antiquarian scholar.

Rich was born near Dijon 'of a good family', but passed his childhood at Bristol. Early on, he developed a gift for languages, becoming familiar not only with Latin and Greek but also with Hebrew, Syriac, Persian, Turkish and other Eastern tongues. In 1803, by the influence of friends, he was appointed a cadet in the East India Company's service. The following year he went to Constantinople, where, and at Smyrna, he stayed some time, perfecting himself in Turkish.

Proceeding to Alexandria as assistant to the British consul-general there, he devoted himself to Arabic and its various dialects, and made himself master of Eastern manners and usages. On leaving Egypt he travelled by land to the Persian Gulf, disguised as a Mamluk, visiting Damascus, and entering the great mosque undetected. At Bombay, which he reached in September 1807, he was the guest of Sir James Mackintosh, whose eldest daughter Mary he married on 22 January 1808, proceeding soon after to Baghdad as the British Resident.

There he began his investigations into the geography, history and antiquities of the district. He explored the remains of Babylon, and projected a geographical and statistical account of the pashalic of Bagdad. The results of his work at Babylon appeared first in the Vienna serial Mines de l'orient, and in 1839 in London under the title Narrative of a Journey to the Site of Babylon in 1811.

In 1813-14 Rich spent some time in Europe, and on his return to Bagdad devoted himself to the study of the geography of Asia Minor, and collected much information in Syriac and Chaldean Christian convents concerning the Yezidis. During this period he made a second excursion to Babylon, and in 1820 undertook an extensive tour of the Chaldean villages in the north of present-day Iraq, alongside al-Munshi al Baghdady—from Bagdad north to Sulaimaniya, eastward to Sinna, then west to Nineveh, and thence down the Tigris to Bagdad. The narrative of this journey, which contained the first accurate knowledge (from scientific observation) regarding the topography and geography of the region, was published by his widow under the title, Narrative of a Residence in Koordistan and on the site of Ancient Nineveh, etc. (London, 1836).

During his time in Baghdad it is recorded that "Mr Rich was universally considered to be the most powerful man in Baghdad; and some even questioned whether the Pasha himself would not shape his conduct according to Mr Rich's suggestions and advice rather than as his own council might wish."

In 1820 Rich went to Basra, whence he made an excursion to Shiraz, visiting the ruins of Persepolis and the other remains in the neighborhood. In the same year he went to Mosul and the site of ancient Nineveh, where he was told of a large relief panel that had been found and soon broken up. When his account was published in 1836 it represented the first Western inkling of the Assyrian palace reliefs that were to be discovered in the 1840s; he also brought back two small fragments.

He was then appointed to an important office at Bombay by Mountstuart Elphinstone, when he was attacked by cholera, during a visit to Shiraz, while exerting himself to help the sick and allay the panic among the inhabitants. He died on 5 October 1821 and was buried in the Jân Numâ, one of the royal gardens at Shiraz, in which he was living at the time of his death. In 1826 his remains were exhumed and reburied in the Armenian cathedral of Jolfa in Esfahan.

His collections were purchased by the trustees of the British Museum, and consisted of 'about nine hundred volumes of manuscripts in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish, and a great number in Chaldee and Syriac … highly rated by Mr. Colebrooke and Dr. Wilkins';[7] a large collection of coins, Greek and oriental; gems, and antiquities dug up at Babylon and Nineveh, including the first cuneiform inscriptions ever brought to Europe. Rich's portrait, presented by his widow Mary Mackintosh Rich, hangs in the students' room of the manuscript department in the British Museum.

-- Claudius Rich, by Wikipedia

He left Baghdad on 4 September and travelled with a caravan through Kermanshah and Hamadan and reached Tehran on 14 October 1820. He sought help from Henry Willock who made it possible for him to stay on for about four months.

Sir Henry Willock (1790 – 1858) was a lieutenant-colonel and the British Envoy to Persia from 1815-1826. He was the chairman of the East India Company (EIC) in 1844–45. Willock married Elizabeth Davis, daughter of EIC Director and orientalist Samuel Davis, in 1826.

-- Henry Willock, by Wikipedia

He left Tehran on 1 March 1821, leaving behind his passport and papers and changing from a European costume to a Persian one apart from writing notes in Hungarian which were to be passed on in the event that he died on his way to Bukhara. He reached Meshed on 18 April and due to the troubles in the area he could not continue until 20 October. He reached Bukhara on 18 November. He initially intended to spend the winter in Bukhara but fearing the Russian army he left after five days and joined a caravan that passed through Balk, Kulm, and Bamian to reach Kabul on 6 January 1822. He left Kabul on 19 January and headed towards Peshawar. On 26 January he met two French officers at Daka, Messrs. Allard and Ventura, who joined him to Lahore. He reached Lahore on 11 March and left on the 23rd passing through Amritsar, Jammu to reach Kashmir on 17 April. Finding company to travel with he left on 9 May to reach Leh on 9 June. Finding the route to Yarkand risky, he decided to return to Lahore and on the way to Kashmir, on 16 July 1822 he met William Moorcroft, the famous English explorer. He decided to stay on with Moorcroft and joined him to Leh. Here Moorcroft introduced Csoma to George Trebeck. He also lent Csoma a copy of Alphabetum Tibetanum by Agostino Antonio Giorgi. He also helped Moorcroft by translating a Russian letter (from Count Nesselrode Petersburgh dated 17 January 1820) addressed to Ranjeet Singh into Latin. Before Moorcroft left Leh, Csoma requested him that he wished to stay on with Trebeck in Leh. He then joined Trebeck back to Srinagar on 26 November. He stayed on here for five months and six days during which time he took an interest in the Tibetan language and discussed with Moorcroft an interest in examining the contents of the books found in the local monasteries.[4]

In Ladakh

Moorcroft recommended Csoma and wrote to obtain subsistence and support from the chief officer at Leh and the Lama of Yangla at Zanskar. Csoma left Kashmir on 2 May 1823 and reached Leh on 1 June 1823. From here he travelled to Yangla on the 9th and stayed in Zanskar from 20 June to 22 October 1824. At Zanskar he studied under a Lama. Towards winter he decided to move to Kullu and reached Subathu on 26 November. Here he was detained by Captain Kennedy who suspected him of being a spy. A letter of introduction and testimony from Moorcroft however clarified his position. It was not until May that the government response from Calcutta reached Subathu which absolved him of any suspicion from the British government.[4] On 6 June 1825, he left Subathu and reached Pukdal or Pukhtar in Zanskar. He returned to Subathu only on 17 January 1827 with some regret that his Lama instructor was not able to give enough time and attention. On his return to Subathu, Captain Kennedy wrote to Horace Hayman Wilson at the Asiatic Society of Bengal that he wished to discuss literary subjects and Tibet. He also noted that Csoma was not in need of money, having saved Rs. 150 from the Rs. 500 advanced to him by the Government two years ago. He also noted that Csoma ".. declines any attention that I would be most happy to show him, and he lives in the most retired manner."

During this period at Zanskar (he was the first European to visit the valley), he was immersed in an intense sixteen-month study of the Tibetan language and the Indo-Tibetan Buddhism at the core of its literature, with a local lama, Sangs-rgyas-phun-tshogs. He was one of the first Europeans to master the Tibetan language and read two of the great encyclopedias of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist literature the Kangyur (100 volumes) and the bsTan-'gyur (224 volumes) which contained translations of Buddhist books brought from India.[6] From May 1827 to October 1830 he resided in Kanum in Upper Bashahr in the Simla Hill States where he studied the collection of Tibetan manuscripts he had amassed in Ladakh, living on a monthly stipend of Rs. 50/- from the British. With his dictionary and grammar complete, Csoma went to Calcutta to oversee its publication.

In the course of his travels Csoma used various names modified for local use. These included Sikander (from Alexander) with the Beg or Mulla suffix and Rumi, Roome, modified into Tibetan as Rumpa as a prefix indicating he was from Rome. He sometimes signed as Secunder Roome.[7]

In Calcutta and Darjeeling


Memorial at Darjeeling

In 1831 Csoma joined the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal in Calcutta. In 1833 he was unanimously elected as an honorary member of the Asiatic Society. In 1834 he was made an honorary member of the Royal Asiatic Society. From 1837 to 1841, he worked as Librarian of the Asiatic Society.[8] In 1842 he planned to travel to Lhasa, but contracted malaria while traveling in the Terai and died in Darjeeling.

Personal life

Csoma lived as an ascetic. He often slept on bare earth and ate a diet of bread, curd cheese, fruit and salad or boiled rice and tea.[9][10] He rarely ate meat and never alcohol.[11] Csoma was known to abstain from drinking water for days.[9] He could "live in the most trying circumstances in the most difficult of climate and terrain".[10] He never sought financial assistance for his work.[10]

Memorials and honours


Csoma's biographer, Theodore Duka, was an Army surgeon of Hungarian origin who worked in India

The grave of Csoma at Darjeeling was marked by a memorial by the Asiatic Society of Bengal. It is included in the list of monuments of historical maintained by the Archaeological Survey of India (Calcutta circle). A tablet was placed by the Hungarian government with the words of Count Istvan Szechenyi : "A poor lonely Hungarian, without applause or money but inspired with enthusiasm sought the Hungarian native country but in the end broke down under the burden".[2] A project has been started to restore the old royal palace (Kharkongma) of Zangla where Csoma de Kőrös lived and compiled his Tibetan–English dictionary.[12]

He was declared as a Bodhisattva (canonized as a Buddhist saint) on 22 February 1933 in Japan. A statue of him in lotus posture by the Hungarian sculptor Géza Csorba was placed on the occasion at the shrine in the Tokyo Buddhist University.[2][13] On his 200th birth anniversary in 1984, the Hungarian government released a postal stamp depicting him and his travel.[14] In 1992 a park in his memory was opened at Tar and inaugurated by the Dalai Lama.[15]

• Csoma was honoured by Hungary by the issuance of a postage stamps: on 1 July 1932.[16]
• On 30 March 1984, Csoma, the Master of Tibetan Philology, was depicted on a commemorative postage stamp by Hungary; in the background a map of Tibet can be seen.[17]

Works of Csoma de Kőrös

• Essay towards a Dictionary, Tibetan and English. Prepared, with assistance of Bandé Sangs-rgyas Phuntshogs ... by Alexander Csoma de Kőrös, etc., Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press, 1834.
• Analysis of the Dulva, part of the Kangyur, Asiatic Researches, Calcutta, 1836, vol. 20-1, pp. 41-93 (on line).
• Essay towards a Dictionary, Tibetan and English, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1984.
• A Grammar of the Tibetan Language in English. Prepared under the patronage of the Government and the auspices of the Asiatic Society of Bengal., Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press, 1834.
• Grammar of the Tibetan Language, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1984.
• Sanskrit-Tibetan-English Vocabulary: being an edition and translation of the Mahāvyutpatti, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1984.
• Collected works of Alexander Csoma de Körös, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1984.

Works about Csoma de Kőrös

Books

• Duka, Theodore Life and works of Alexander Csoma de Kőrös: a biography compiled chiefly from hitherto unpublished data; with a brief notice of each of his unpublished works and essays, as well as of his still extant manuscripts. London: Trübner, 1885.
• Mukerjee, Hirendra Nath Hermit-hero from Hungary, Alexander Csoma de Koros, the great Tibetologist. New Delhi: Light & Life Publishers, 1981.
• Le Calloch, Bernard Alexandre Csoma de Kőrös. Paris: La nouvelle revue tibétaine, 1985.
• Fox, Edward The Hungarian Who Walked to Heaven (Alexander Csoma de Koros 1784-1842). Short Books, 2001.

Films

• A Guest of Life, a film by Tibor Szemző, 2006. IMDB
• Zangla - Path of Csoma, a film by Zoltán Bonta, 2008.

Scholarly Articles

• "New Discoveries about Alexander Csoma de Kőrös and the Buddhist Monasteries of Northern India" by Judith Galántha Herman (Montreal), Lectures and Papers in Hungarian Studies, no. 44.
• "Alexander Csoma de Kőrös the Hungarian Bodhisattva" by Dr. Ernest Hetenyi PDF of the full text

Catalogue of the Csoma de Kőrös Collection

• Collection of Tibetan mss. and xylographs of Alexander Csoma de Kőrös. József Terjék. Budapest : Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Könyvtára, 1976.
• Original copies of the Tibetan and English Dictionary and Grammar of the Tibetan Language in English are available at the British Library.

Notes

1. Short bio and works (Hungarian)
2. Hetenyi, Ernest. "Alexander Csoma de Koros: The Hungarian Bodhisattva" (PDF). Bulletin of Tibetology. 9 (1): 34–41.
3. Parish register record of 4 April 1784 was noted by Duka, however others think this might be the date of baptism and the year 1787/1788 is also suggested by certain authors.
4. Duka, Theodore (1885). Life and Works of Alexander Csoma de Körös. London: Trubner & Co.
5. Fox, Edward (2006). The Hungarian Who Walked To Heaven: Alexander Csoma de Koros 1784-1842. London: Short Books.
6. Saint-Hilaire, J.-B. Buddha and his Religion. Twickenham: Tiger Books International, 1998 ISBN 1-85170-540-6 p19
7. Marczell, Peter (2005). "Csoma Kőrösi's Pseudonym". In Bray, John (ed.). Ladakhi histories. Local and Regional Perspectives. Brill. pp. 203–216.
8. Journal of The Asiatic Society, Vol.XLVII, No.1, Kolkata: The Asiatic Society, 2005, p.236
9. Ligeti, Lajos. (1984). Tibetan and Buddhist Studies: Commemorating the 200th Anniversary of the Birth of Alexander Csoma de Kőrös. Akad. Kiadó. p. 151
10. Moses, Mohandas; Moulik, Achala. (2009). Dialogue of Civilizations: William Jones and the Orientalists. Aryan Books International. p. 344
11. Kubassek, János. (1999). Hungarian Hermit of the Himalaya: The Life of Sándor Kőrösi Csoma Against a Contemporary Historical and Geographical Backdrop. Hungarian Ancient History Research and Publishing. p. 51
12. Csoma's Room Project
13. Le Calloc'h, Bernard (1987). "Alexandre Csoma de Koros. Le Bodhisattva Hongrois". Revue de l'histoire des religions. 204 (4): 353–388. doi:10.3406/rhr.1987.2166.
14. "Stamps of Hungary". Archived from the original on 11 April 2013.
15. "Alexander Csoma de Kőrös Memorial Park".
16. colnect.com/en/stamps/stamp/183698-Sándor_Kőrösi_Csoma_1784-1842_linguist-Personalities-Hungary
17. colnect.com/en/stamps/stamp/175167-Sándor_Kőrösi_Csoma-People-Hungary

External links

• Csoma Archívum - Works of Alexander Csoma de Kőrös online (partly in English)
• Alexander Csoma de Kőrös- founder of Tibetan studies, and his legacy in the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
• Essay Towards a Dictionary, Tibetan and English (1834)

[admin]

William Marsden (orientalist)
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/14/21

CHAPTER XV. THE SAME CONTINUED. THE HISTORY OF SAGAMONI BORCAN [SAKYA-MUNI] AND THE BEGINNING OF IDOLATRY.

Furthermore you must know that in the Island of Seilan [Ceylon] there is an exceeding high mountain; it rises right up so steep and precipitous that no one could ascend it, were it not that they have taken and fixed to it several great and massive iron chains, so disposed that by help of these men are able to mount to the top. And I tell you they say that on this mountain is the sepulchre of Adam our first parent; at least that is what the Saracens [Arab Muslims] say. But the Idolaters say that it is the sepulchre of SAGAMONI BORCAN, before whose time there were no idols. They hold him to have been the best of men, a great saint in fact, according to their fashion, and the first in whose name idols were made.[NOTE 1]

He was the son, as their story goes, of a great and wealthy king. And he was of such an holy temper that he would never listen to any worldly talk, nor would he consent to be king. And when the father saw that his son would not be king, nor yet take any part in affairs, he took it sorely to heart. And first he tried to tempt him with great promises, offering to crown him king, and to surrender all authority into his hands. The son, however, would none of his offers; so the father was in great trouble, and all the more that he had no other son but him, to whom he might bequeath the kingdom at his own death. So, after taking thought on the matter, the King caused a great palace to be built, and placed his son therein, and caused him to be waited on there by a number of maidens, the most beautiful that could anywhere be found. And he ordered them to divert themselves with the prince, night and day, and to sing and dance before him, so as to draw his heart towards worldly enjoyments. But 'twas all of no avail, for none of those maidens could ever tempt the king's son to any wantonness, and he only abode the firmer in his chastity, leading a most holy life, after their manner thereof. And I assure you he was so staid a youth that he had never gone out of the palace, and thus he had never seen a dead man, nor any one who was not hale and sound; for the father never allowed any man that was aged or infirm to come into his presence. It came to pass however one day that the young gentleman took a ride, and by the roadside he beheld a dead man. The sight dismayed him greatly, as he never had seen such a sight before. Incontinently he demanded of those who were with him what thing that was? and then they told him it was a dead man. "How, then," quoth the king's son, "do all men die?" "Yea, forsooth," said they. Whereupon the young gentleman said never a word, but rode on right pensively. And after he had ridden a good way he fell in with a very aged man who could no longer walk, and had not a tooth in his head, having lost all because of his great age. And when the king's son beheld this old man he asked what that might mean, and wherefore the man could not walk? Those who were with him replied that it was through old age the man could walk no longer, and had lost all his teeth. And so when the king's son had thus learned about the dead man and about the aged man, he turned back to his palace and said to himself that he would abide no longer in this evil world, but would go in search of Him Who dieth not, and Who had created him.[NOTE 2]

So what did he one night but take his departure from the palace privily, and betake himself to certain lofty and pathless mountains. And there he did abide, leading a life of great hardship and sanctity, and keeping great abstinence, just as if he had been a Christian. Indeed, an he had but been so, he would have been a great saint of Our Lord Jesus Christ, so good and pure was the life he led.[NOTE 3] And when he died they found his body and brought it to his father. And when the father saw dead before him that son whom he loved better than himself, he was near going distraught with sorrow. And he caused an image in the similitude of his son to be wrought in gold and precious stones, and caused all his people to adore it. And they all declared him to be a god; and so they still say. [NOTE 4]

They tell moreover that he hath died fourscore and four times. The first time he died as a man, and came to life again as an ox; and then he died as an ox and came to life again as a horse, and so on until he had died fourscore and four times; and every time he became some kind of animal. But when he died the eighty-fourth time they say he became a god. And they do hold him for the greatest of all their gods. And they tell that the aforesaid image of him was the first idol that the Idolaters ever had; and from that have originated all the other idols. And this befel in the Island of Seilan [Ceylon] in India.

The Idolaters come thither on pilgrimage from very long distances and with great devotion, just as Christians go to the shrine of Messer Saint James in Gallicia. And they maintain that the monument on the mountain is that of the king's son, according to the story I have been telling you; and that the teeth, and the hair, and the dish that are there were those of the same king's son, whose name was Sagamoni Borcan, or Sagamoni the Saint. But the Saracens also come thither on pilgrimage in great numbers, and they say that it is the sepulchre of Adam our first father, and that the teeth, and the hair, and the dish were those of Adam.[NOTE 5]

Whose they were in truth, God knoweth; howbeit, according to the Holy Scripture of our Church, the sepulchre of Adam is not in that part of the world.

Now it befel that the Great Kaan heard how on that mountain there was the sepulchre of our first father Adam, and that some of his hair and of his teeth, and the dish from which he used to eat, were still preserved there. So he thought he would get hold of them somehow or another, and despatched a great embassy for the purpose, in the year of Christ, 1284. The ambassadors, with a great company, travelled on by sea and by land until they arrived at the island of Seilan [Ceylon], and presented themselves before the king. And they were so urgent with him that they succeeded in getting two of the grinder teeth, which were passing great and thick; and they also got some of the hair, and the dish from which that personage used to eat, which is of a very beautiful green porphyry. And when the Great Kaan's ambassadors had attained the object for which they had come they were greatly rejoiced, and returned to their lord. And when they drew near to the great city of Cambaluc, where the Great Kaan was staying, they sent him word that they had brought back that for which he had sent them. On learning this the Great Kaan was passing glad, and ordered all the ecclesiastics and others to go forth to meet these reliques, which he was led to believe were those of Adam.

And why should I make a long story of it? In sooth, the whole population of Cambaluc went forth to meet those reliques, and the ecclesiastics took them over and carried them to the Great Kaan, who received them with great joy and reverence.[NOTE 6] And they find it written in their Scriptures that the virtue of that dish is such that if food for one man be put therein it shall become enough for five men: and the Great Kaan averred that he had proved the thing and found that it was really true.[NOTE 7]

So now you have heard how the Great Kaan came by those reliques; and a mighty great treasure it did cost him! The reliques being, according to the Idolaters, those of that king's son.

NOTE 1.—Sagamoni Borcan is, as [William] Marsden points out, SAKYA-MUNI, or Gautama-Buddha, with the affix BURKHAN, or "Divinity," which is used by the Mongols as the synonym of Buddha.

-- The Travels of Marco Polo, by Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

William Marsden
FRS FSA
Marsden in 1815
First Secretary to the Admiralty
In office: 24 January 1804 – 24 June 1807
Preceded by: Sir Evan Nepean
Succeeded by: William Wellesley-Pole
Second Secretary to the Admiralty
In office: 3 March 1795 – 21 January 1804
Preceded by: John Ibbetson
Succeeded by: Benjamin Tucker
Personal details
Born: 16 November 1754, County Wicklow, Ireland
Died: 6 October 1836 (aged 81), Aldenham, England
Spouse(s): Elizabeth Wray ​(m. 1807)​
Education: Trinity College; Oxford University
Occupation: Orientalist, numismatist, linguist
Employer: East India Company

William Marsden FRS FSA (16 November 1754 – 6 October 1836) was an Irish orientalist, numismatist [coins], and linguist who served as Second, then First Secretary to the Admiralty during years of conflict with France [Napoleonic Wars].

Early life

Marsden was the son of a Dublin merchant. He was born in Verval, County Wicklow,[1] and educated at Trinity College, Dublin. Upon obtaining a civil service appointment with the East India Company at sixteen years of age, he was sent to Benkulen, Sumatra, in 1771. He was promoted to the position of principal secretary to the government, and acquired a knowledge of the Malay language and the country. After returning to England in 1779, he was awarded the Doctor of Civil Law (D.C.L.) degree by Oxford University in 1780[2] and published his History of Sumatra in 1783.[3]

Marsden was elected to membership in the Royal Society in 1783. He had been recommended by James Rennell, Edward Whitaker Gray, John Topham, Alexander Dalrymple, and Charles Blagden.[4]

Admiralty secretary

In 1795, Marsden was appointed second secretary to the admiralty, later rising to the position of first secretary with a salary of £4,000 per annum. It was in this capacity in 1805 that he received the news of victory in the Battle of Trafalgar and of the death of Admiral Horatio Nelson in the battle. As first secretary he suggested the Marsden squares system for arranging and grouping information over the oceans. He retired in 1807 with a lifetime pension of £1,500 per annum which he subsequently relinquished in 1831. In 1812, he published Grammar and Dictionary of the Malay Language.[5] This was followed by a translation of the Travels of Marco Polo in 1818.[3]

Marsden was a member of many learned societies, and treasurer[6] and vice-president of the Royal Society. In 1834 he presented his collection of oriental coins to the British Museum and his library of books and Oriental manuscripts to King's College London.[7] His other works are Catalogue of Dictionaries, Vocabularies, Grammars and Alphabets (1796), Numismata orientalia (London, 1823–1825), and several papers on Eastern topics in the Philosophical Transactions and the Archaeologia.[3]

Marsden's Numismata orientalia opened the field for Asian numismatics in Western languages, and was a "bible" for the subject, so much so that a new edition was planned in 1870s, but the field had grown so much by then that the new series was soon renamed as the International Numismata Orientalia.

He married Elizabeth, the daughter of his friend Sir Charles Wilkins FRS, but there was no issue to this marriage. He died on 6 October 1836 from an apoplexy attack and was buried at Kensal Green Cemetery. He left his estate to his kinsman Rev. Canon John Howard Marsden. Elizabeth subsequently married Colonel William Leake FRS on 17 September 1838.

Selected works

• 1784 – The history of Sumatra: containing an account of the government, laws, customs and manners of the native inhabitants, with a description of the natural productions, and a relation of the ancient political state of that island. London: Printed for the author. OCLC 3792458
• 1802 – "Observations on the language of Siwah; in a letter to the Rt. Hon. Sir Joseph Banks; by William Marsden, Esq., F.R.S." in The Journal of Frederick Horneman's Travels: From Cairo to Mourzouk, the Capital of the Kingdom of Fezzan, in Africa, by Friedrich Hornemann, James Rennell, William Marsden and William Young. London: G. and W. Nicol. OCLC 5165766
• 1796 – Catalogue of Dictionaries, Vocabularies, Grammars and Alphabets
• 1812 – Grammar and Dictionary of the Malay Language single edition, Dutch & French translation of the Grammar (C. P. J. Elout based on Marsden), Dutch-Malay & French-Malay Dictionary (C. P. J. Elout based on Marsden)
• 1818 – Travels of Marco Polo[8]
• 1823 – Numismata orientalia
• 1830 – Memoirs of a Malayan Family by 'La-uddı̄n Nakhoda Muda (translated by William Marsden). London: Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland. OCLC 5347657
The standard author abbreviation Marsden is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.[9]

Notes

1. "Wm. Marsden, Esq., D.C.L., F.R.S.", The Gentleman's Magazine, VII (Feb. 1837), p. 212.
2. C.E. Buckland, Dictionary of Indian Biography, London, Swan Sonnenschein (1906), p. 273.
3. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Marsden, William". Encyclopædia Britannica. 17 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 766.
4. The Royal Society, Archives, Ref. No. EC/1782/10.
5. A copy of Grammar and Dictionary of the Malay Language PDF from Google.
6. "Proceedings of Learned Societies," Philosophical Magazine. Vol. XXV (1806). p. 267.
7. http://www.kcl.ac.uk/library/archivespe ... rsden.aspx
8. "Review of The Travels of Marco Polo ... translated from the Italian, with notes, by William Marsden ..." The Quarterly Review. 21: 177–195. January 1819.
9. IPNI. Marsden.

References

• Marsden, William. (1838). Brief Memoir of the Life and Writings of the Late William Marsden. London: Cox. OCLC 18750067
• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Marsden, William". Encyclopædia Britannica. 17 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 766.

External links

• Works by William Marsden at Biodiversity Heritage Library
• Works by William Marsden at Open Library
• Works by William Marsden at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about William Marsden at Internet Archive

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Kakusandha Buddha
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/14/21


Kakusandha
North-facing Kakusandha Buddha, Ananda Temple, Myanmar
Sanskrit: क्रकुच्छंद
Pāli: Kakusandha
Burmese: ကကုသန် ([ka̰kṵθàɰ̃])
Chinese: 拘留孙佛 (Pinyin: Jūliúsūn Fó)
Japanese: 拘留孫仏くるそん ぶつ (romaji: Kuruson Butsu)
Khmer: ព្រះពុទ្ធកកុសន្ធោ Preah Puth Kakosantho
Korean: 구류손불 (RR: Guryuson Bul)
Mongolian: Кракучандра
Sinhala: කකුසඳ බුදුන් වහන්සේ Kakusandha budun wahanse
Thai: พระกกุสันธพุทธเจ้า Phra Kakusantha Phutthachao
Tibetan: འཁོར་བ་འཇིག་; Wylie: 'khor ba 'jig; THL: khorwa jik
Vietnamese: Phật Câu Lưu Tôn
Information
Venerated by: Theravada, Mahayana, Vajrayana
Preceded by: Viśvabhū Buddha
Succeeded by: Kanakamuni Buddha

Kakusandha Buddha (Pāli), known as Krakucchaṃda in Sanskrit, is one of the ancient Buddhas whose biography is chronicled in chapter 22[1] of the Buddhavamsa, one of the books of the Pāli Canon.

According to Theravāda Buddhist tradition, Kakusandha is the twenty-fifth of the twenty-nine named Buddhas, the fourth of the Seven Buddhas of Antiquity, and the first of the five Buddhas of the present kalpa.[2]

The present kalpa is called the bhadrakalpa (Auspicious aeon). The five Buddhas of the present kalpa are:[3][4]

1. Kakusandha (the first Buddha of the bhadrakalpa)
2. Koṇāgamana (the second Buddha of the bhadrakalpa)
3. Kassapa (the third Buddha of the bhadrakalpa)
4. Gautama (the fourth and present Buddha of the bhadrakalpa)
5. Maitreya (the fifth and future Buddha of the bhadrakalpa)

Life

Kakusandha Buddha was born in Khemavati Park in Khemavati according to the Theravada tradition.[1] Khemavati is now known as Gotihawa, and it is located about 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) southeast of Kapilavastu, in Kapilvastu District, in the Lumbini Zone of southern Nepal.[5] His father was Aggidatta,a chaplain of the king Khemankara of Khemavati. His mother was Visakha. His wife was Virochamana (also known as Rocani); he had a son, Uttara (son of Kakusandha). Asoka visited Gotihawa, Nepal when he visited Lumbini, Nepal and installed a stone pillar and inscribed his visit in the pillar. There is also a stupa in Gothihawa. Therefore, it is generally accepted due to the pillar that stupa is associated with the nirvana of Kakusandha Buddha.

Kakusandha lived for four thousand years in the household in three palaces: Ruci, Suruci and Vaddhana (or Rativaddhana). At the age of four thousand, he renounced the worldly life while riding on a chariot. He practised austerities for eight months.[6] Before attaining enlightenment, he had accepted some milk-rice from the daughter of the Brahmin Vajirindha of the village Suchirindha, as well as grass for his seat from the yavapalaka Subhadda. He attained enlightenment under a sirisa tree [Albizia lebbeck], then delivered his first sermon to the assembly of eighty-four thousand monks in a park near Makila.

Kakusandha performed the twin miracle under a sala tree, at the gates of Kannakujja. Among his converts was a fierce yaksha named Naradeva. Kakusandha kept the fast-day (uposatha) every year.

His chief disciples were Vidhura and Sanjiva among the monks, and Sama and Champa among the nuns. His personal attendant was Buddhija. Acchuta and Samana among the men, and Nanda and Sunanda among the women were his chief lay-supporters. Acchuta built a monastery for Kakusandha Buddha on the same site, which was later chosen by Anathapindika for Jetavana Arama for Gautama Buddha.

Anathapindika (Pali: Anāthapiṇḍika; Sanskrit: Anāthapiṇḍada); born Sudatta, was a wealthy merchant and banker, believed to have been the wealthiest merchant in Savatthi in the time of Gautama Buddha. He is considered to have been the chief male patron of the Buddha. Anathapindika founded the Jetavana Monastery in Savatthi, considered one of the two most important temples in the time of the historic Buddha, the other being Migāramātupāsāda.

Jetavana (lit. 'Jeta's grove') was one of the most famous of the Buddhist monasteries or viharas in India (present-day Uttar Pradesh). It was the second vihara donated to Gautama Buddha after the Venuvana in Rajgir. The monastery was given to him by his chief male lay disciple, Anathapindika.

Jetavana is located just outside the old city of Savatthi. There was also an important vihara named Jetavana in Sri Lanka.

Jetavana was the place where the Buddha gave the majority of his teachings and discourses, having stayed at Jetavana nineteen out of 45 vassas, more than in any other monastery. It is said that after the Migāramātupāsāda, a second vihara erected at Pubbarama close to Savatthi was built by the Buddha's chief female lay disciple, Visakha, the Buddha would dwell alternately between Jetavana and Migāramātupāsāda, often spending the day in one and the night in the other (SNA.i.336).

-- Jetavana, by Wikipedia

Anathapindika was born into a wealthy merchant family in Savatthi with the birth name Sudatta, and was a relative of Subhūti, one of the Buddha's principal disciples. He received the nickname Anathapindika, literally "one who gives alms (piṇḍa) to the unprotected (anātha)", due to his reputation of loving to give to those in need. Anathapindika met the Buddha while on a business trip in Rājagaha after being told about him by his brother-in-law. He reached sotapanna, a stage of enlightenment, after listening to the Buddha preach. Following the encounter, Anathapindika became a devoted lay follower and purchased land to build the Jetavana Monastery from the prince of Kosala by covering the park grounds with coins. After building Jetavana Monastery, Anathapindika continued to generously support the Buddha and his monastic community throughout his life and became known as the Buddha's greatest patron and benefactor along with his female counterpart, Visakha.

As chief patron, Anathapindika fed large numbers of the Buddha's monks daily and regularly maintained and supplied Jetavana Monastery, as well as served as one of the Buddha's primary aides in dealing with the general public. He is known as the male lay disciple of the Buddha who was foremost in generosity. Anathapindika is frequently referred to as Anathapindika-setthi (setthi meaning "wealthy person" or "millionaire"), and is sometimes referred to as Mahā Anāthapindika to distinguish him from Cūla Anāthapindika, another disciple of the Buddha.

-- Anathapindika, by Wikipedia

According to the Samyutta Nikaya (ii.194), the Vepulla peak of Rajgir was then called Pachinvamsa; and the people of the region Tivara.

Kakusandha's body was forty cubits in height [18" x 40 = 60 feet], and he died at the age of forty thousand years in Khemavati. The stupa erected over his relics was one league high [the distance a Roman person could walk in an hour = 1.5 miles = 7,920 feet].[6]

The Mile-High Illinois, Illinois Sky City, or simply The Illinois is a visionary skyscraper that is proposed to be over 1 mile (1,600 m) high, conceived and described by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright in his 1957 book, A Testament. The design, intended to be built in Chicago, included 528 stories, with a gross area of 18,460,000 square feet (1,715,000 m2). Wright stated that there would be parking for 15,000 cars and 100 helicopters.

If built, it would top the list of the tallest buildings in the world by far, being more than four times the height of the Empire State Building, and twice as tall as the world's current tallest building, the Burj Khalifa and about 730 meters taller than Jeddah Tower, both designed by Adrian Smith and which designs are said to have been inspired by that of The Illinois.

-- The Illinois, by Wikipedia

In this manner Buddha Kakusandha attained Parinibbana in Khema Park. In that very Park, as has been said before, a cetiya was erected over the relics of Buddha Kakusandha; it was exactly one yojana high [14 km. = 8.5 miles = 44,880 feet high].

-- Chronicle of Twenty-four Buddhas [Excerpt], by Mingun Sayadaw

Mount Everest is Earth's highest mountain above sea level, located in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas. Its elevation (snow height) of 8,848.86 m (29,031.7 ft) was most recently established in 2020 by the Nepali and Chinese authorities.

-- Mount Everest, by Wikipedia

The bodhisattva who was to become Siddhartha Gautama was born as King Khema during the time of Kakusandha. Kakusandha was the Buddha who foretold that King Khema, who offered him alms with robes and medicines, would become the Gautama Buddha in the future.[7]

See also

• Bhadrakalpikasutra

References

1. Vicittasarabivamsa, U (1992). "Chapter 22: Kakusandha Buddhavamsa". In Ko Lay, U; Tin Lwin, U (eds.). The great chronicle of Buddhas, Volume One, Part Two (1st ed.). Yangon, Myanmar: Ti=Ni Publishing Center. pp. 274–80.
2. Gärtner, Uta; Jens Lorenz (1994). Tradition and modernity in Myanmar. LIT Verlag. p. 281. ISBN 978-3-8258-2186-9.
3. Buswell Jr., RE; Lopez Jr., DS (2014). The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism (1st ed.). Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. p. 106. ISBN 978-0-691-15786-3.
4. "Chapter 36: The Buddhas in the three periods of time". Buddhism in a Nutshell Archives. Hong Kong: Buddhistdoor International. Retrieved 2014-12-21.
5. Chan Khoon San, Buddhist Pilgrimage Archived 2015-03-25 at the Wayback Machine, Subang Jaya Buddhist Association, Subang Jaya, Malaysia, 2001, page 51.
6. Vipassana.info, Pali Proper Names Dictionary: Kakusandha
7. Prophecies of Kakusandha Buddha, Konagamana Buddha and Kassapa Buddha Archived 2011-07-13 at the Wayback Machine

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Pāli Canon
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/14/21


Standard edition of the Thai Pali Canon

Pāli Canon

1. Vinaya Piṭaka
1. Suttavibhaṅga
2. Khandhaka
3. Parivāra
2. Sutta Piṭaka
1. Dīgha Nikāya
2. Majjhima Nikāya
3. Saṃyutta Nikāya
4. Aṅguttara Nikāya
5. Khuddaka Nikāya
3. Abhidhamma Piṭaka
1. Dhammasaṅgaṇī
2. Vibhaṅga
3. Dhātukathā
4. Puggalapaññatti
5. Kathāvatthu
6. Yamaka
7. Paṭṭhāna

The Pāli Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language.[1] It is the most complete extant early Buddhist canon.[2][3] It derives mainly from the Tamrashatiya school.[4]

During the First Buddhist Council, thirty years after the parinibbana of Gautama Buddha in Rajgir, Ananda recited the Sutta Pitaka, and Upali recited the Vinaya Pitaka. The Arhats present accepted the recitations and henceforth the teachings were preserved orally by the Sangha. The Tipitaka that was transmitted to Sri Lanka during the reign of King Asoka were initially preserved orally and were later written down during the Fourth Buddhist Council in 29 BCE, approximately 454 years after the death of Gautama Buddha.[a][6] So when we say that the texts were “spoken by the Buddha”, we mean it in this non-literal sense.[7]

As we learn from the well-known references to the existence of the bhanaka tradition existing until later periods and from several other sources, oral tradition continued to exist side by side with written scriptures for many centuries to come. This, the so-called writing down of the scriptures[8] was only the beginning of a new form of tradition, and the innovation was probably opposed by the more conservative monks. As with many other innovations, it was only after some time that it was generally accepted. Therefore, it was much later that the records of this event were transformed into an account of a "council" (sangayana or sangiti) which was held under the patronage of King Vattagamani.

Textual fragments of similar teachings have been found in the agama of other major Buddhist schools in India. They were however written down in various Prakrits other than Pali as well as Sanskrit. Some of those were later translated into Chinese (earliest dating to the late 4th century CE). The surviving Sri Lankan version is the most complete,[9] but one that was extensively redacted about 1,000 years after Buddha's death, in the 5th or 6th century CE.[10] The earliest textual fragments of canonical Pali were found in the Pyu city-states in Burma dating only to the mid 5th to mid 6th century CE.[11]

The Pāli Canon falls into three general categories, called pitaka (from Pali piṭaka, meaning "basket", referring to the receptacles in which the palm-leaf manuscripts were kept).[12] Because of this, the canon is traditionally known as the Tipiṭaka ("three baskets"). The three pitakas are as follows:

1. Vinaya Piṭaka ("Discipline Basket"), dealing with rules or discipline of the sangha;[12][9]

2. Sutta Piṭaka (Sutra/Sayings Basket), discourses and sermons of Buddha, some religious poetry and is the largest basket;[12]

3. Abhidhamma Piṭaka, treatises that elaborate Buddhist doctrines, particularly about mind, also called the "systematic philosophy" basket.

The Vinaya Pitaka and the Sutta Pitaka are remarkably similar to the works of the early Buddhist schools, often termed Early Buddhist Texts. The Abhidhamma Pitaka, however, is a strictly Theravada collection and has little in common with the Abhidhamma works recognized by other Buddhist schools.[13]

The Canon in the tradition


In pre-modern times the Pali Canon was not published in book form, but written on thin slices of wood (Palm-leaf manuscript or Bamboo). The leaves are kept on top of each other by thin sticks and the scripture is covered in cloth and kept in a box.

The Canon is traditionally described by the Theravada as the Word of the Buddha (buddhavacana), though this is not intended in a literal sense, since it includes teachings by disciples.[14]

The traditional Theravādin (Mahavihārin) interpretation of the Pali Canon is given in a series of commentaries covering nearly the whole Canon, compiled by Buddhaghosa (fl. 4th–5th century CE) and later monks, mainly on the basis of earlier materials now lost. Subcommentaries have been written afterward, commenting further on the Canon and its commentaries. The traditional Theravādin interpretation is summarized in Buddhaghosa's Visuddhimagga.[15]

An official view is given by a spokesman for the Buddha Sasana Council of Burma:[16] the Canon contains everything needed to show the path to nirvāna; the commentaries and subcommentaries sometimes include much speculative matter, but are faithful to its teachings and often give very illuminating illustrations. In Sri Lanka and Thailand, "official" Buddhism has in large part adopted the interpretations of Western scholars.[17]

Although the Canon has existed in written form for two millennia, its earlier oral nature has not been forgotten in actual Buddhist practice within the tradition: memorization and recitation remain common. Among frequently recited texts are the Paritta. Even lay people usually know at least a few short texts by heart and recite them regularly; this is considered a form of meditation, at least if one understands the meaning. Monks are of course expected to know quite a bit more (see Dhammapada below for an example). A Burmese monk named Vicittasara even learned the entire Canon by heart for the Sixth Council (again according to the usual Theravada numbering).[18][19]

The relation of the scriptures to Buddhism as it actually exists among ordinary monks and lay people is, as with other major religious traditions, problematic: the evidence suggests that only parts of the Canon ever enjoyed wide currency, and that non-canonical works were sometimes very much more widely used; the details varied from place to place.[20] Rupert Gethin suggests that the whole of Buddhist history may be regarded as a working out of the implications of the early scriptures.[21]

Origins

According to a late part of the Pali Canon, the Buddha taught the three pitakas.[22] It is traditionally believed by Theravadins that most of the Pali Canon originated from the Buddha and his immediate disciples. According to the scriptures, a council was held shortly after the Buddha's passing to collect and preserve his teachings. The Theravada tradition states that it was recited orally from the 5th century BCE to the first century BCE, when it was written down.[23] The memorization was enforced by regular communal recitations. The tradition holds that only a few later additions were made. The Theravādin pitakas were first written down in Sri Lanka in the Alu Viharaya Temple no earlier than 29–17 BCE.[24]

The geographic setting of identifiable texts within the Canon generally corresponds to locations in the Ganges region of northeastern India, including the kingdoms of Kosala, Kasi, Vajji, and Magadha.[25] While Theravada tradition has generally regarded Pali as being synonymous with the language of the kingdom of Magadhi as spoken by the Buddha, linguists have identified Pali as being more closely related to other prakrit languages of western India, and found substantial incompatibilities with the few preserved examples of Magadhi and other north-eastern prakrit languages.[26] Linguistic research suggests that the teachings of the Buddha may have been recorded in an eastern India language originally, but were transposed into the west Indian precursor of Pali sometime before the Asokan era.[25]

Much of the material in the Canon is not specifically Theravādin, but is instead the collection of teachings that this school preserved from the early, non-sectarian body of teachings. According to Peter Harvey, it contains material which is at odds with later Theravādin orthodoxy. He states that "the Theravādins, then, may have added texts to the Canon for some time, but they do not appear to have tampered with what they already had from an earlier period."[27] A variety of factors suggest that the early Sri Lankan Buddhists regarded canonical literature as such and transmitted it conservatively.[28]

Theravada tradition generally treats the Canon as a whole as originating with the Buddha and his immediate disciples (with the exception certain, generally Abhidhamma texts, that explicitly refer to events long after his death). Scholars differ in their views regarding the ultimate origin of the Pali Canon, but generally believe that the Canon includes several strata of relatively early and late texts, but with little consensus regarding the relative dating of different sections of the Canon or which texts belong to which era.[25]

Authorship

Authorship according to Theravadins

Prayudh Payutto argues that the Pali Canon represents the teachings of the Buddha essentially unchanged apart from minor modifications. He argues that it also incorporates teachings that precede the Buddha, and that the later teachings were memorized by the Buddha's followers while he was still alive. His thesis is based on study of the processes of the first great council, and the methods for memorization used by the monks, which started during the Buddha's lifetime. It's also based on the capability of a few monks, to this day, to memorize the entire canon.[29]

Bhikkhu Sujato and Bhikkhu Brahmali argue that it is likely that much of the Pali Canon dates back to the time period of the Buddha. They base this on many lines of evidence including the technology described in the canon (apart from the obviously later texts), which matches the technology of his day which was in rapid development, that it doesn't include back written prophecies of the great Buddhist ruler King Ashoka (which Mahayana texts often do) suggesting that it predates his time, that in its descriptions of the political geography it presents India at the time of Buddha, which changed soon after his death, that it has no mention of places in South India, which would have been well known to Indians not long after Buddha's death and various other lines of evidence dating the material back to his time.[30]

Authorship according to academic scholars

The views of scholars concerning the authorship of the Pali Canon can be grouped into three categories:

1. Attribution to the Buddha himself and his early followers
2. Attribution to the period of pre-sectarian Buddhism
3. Agnosticism

Scholars have both supported and opposed the various existing views.

Views concerning authorship of the Buddha himself

Several scholars of early Buddhism argue that the nucleus of the Buddhist teachings in the Pali Canon may derive from Gautama Buddha himself, but that part of it also was developed after the Buddha by his early followers. Richard Gombrich says that the main preachings of the Buddha (as in the Vinaya and Sutta Pitaka) are coherent and cogent, and must be the work of a single person: the Buddha himself, not a committee of followers after his death.[ b][32]

Other scholars are more cautious, and attribute part of the Pali canon to the Buddha's early followers. Peter Harvey[33] also states that "much" of the Pali Canon must derive from the Buddha's teaching, but also states that "parts of the Pali Canon clearly originated after the time of the Buddha."[c] A.K. Warder has stated that there is no evidence to suggest that the shared teaching of the early schools was formulated by anyone else than the Buddha and his immediate followers.[d] J.W. de Jong has said it would be "hypocritical" to assert that we can say nothing about the teachings of earliest Buddhism, arguing that "the basic ideas of Buddhism found in the canonical writings could very well have been proclaimed by him [the Buddha], transmitted and developed by his disciples and, finally, codified in fixed formulas."[35] Alex Wynne has said that some texts in the Pali Canon may go back to the very beginning of Buddhism, which perhaps include the substance of the Buddha's teaching, and in some cases, maybe even his words.[e]. He suggests that the canon was composed early on soon after Buddha's paranirvana, but after a period of free improvisation, and then the core teachings were preserved nearly verbatim by memory.[36] Hajime Nakamura writes that while nothing can be definitively attributed to Gautama as a historical figure, some sayings or phrases must derive from him.[37]

Views concerning authorship in the period of pre-sectarian Buddhism

Most scholars do agree that there was a rough body of sacred literature that a relatively early community maintained and transmitted.[38][f]

Much of the Pali Canon is found also in the scriptures of other early schools of Buddhism, parts of whose versions are preserved, mainly in Chinese. Many scholars have argued that this shared material can be attributed to the period of Pre-sectarian Buddhism.[citation needed] This is the period before the early schools separated in about the fourth or third century BCE.

Views concerning agnosticism

Some scholars see the Pali Canon as expanding and changing from an unknown nucleus.[39] Arguments given for an agnostic attitude include that the evidence for the Buddha's teachings dates from (long) after his death.

Some scholars of later Indian Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism say that little or nothing goes back to the Buddha. Ronald Davidson[40] has little confidence that much, if any, of surviving Buddhist scripture is actually the word of the historical Buddha.[38] Geoffrey Samuel[41] says the Pali Canon largely derives from the work of Buddhaghosa and his colleagues in the 5th century CE.[42] Gregory Schopen argues[43] that it is not until the 5th to 6th centuries CE that we can know anything definite about the contents of the Canon. This position was criticized by A. Wynne.[5]

Authorship of the Abhidhamma Pitaka

Western scholarship suggests that the Abhidhamma Pitaka was likely began to be composed around 300 BCE, but may have drawn on an earlier tradition of lists and rubrics known as 'matrika'.[12][44] Traditional accounts include it among the texts recited at the First Buddhist Council and attribute differences in form and style to its composition by Sariputra.[45][46]

The earliest books of the Pali Canon

Different positions have been taken on what the earliest books of the Canon are. The majority of Western scholars consider the earliest identifiable stratum to be mainly prose works,[47] the Vinaya (excluding the Parivāra)[48] and the first four nikāyas of the Sutta Pitaka,[49][50] and perhaps also some short verse works[51] such as the Suttanipata.[48] However, some scholars, particularly in Japan, maintain that the Suttanipāta is the earliest of all Buddhist scriptures, followed by the Itivuttaka and Udāna.[52] However, some of the developments in teachings may only reflect changes in teaching that the Buddha himself adopted, during the 45 years that the Buddha was teaching.[g]

Scholars generally agree that the early books include some later additions.[53] Aspects of these late additions are or may be from a much earlier period.[54][55][56] Other aspects of the Pali Canon, such as the information about society and South Asian history, are in doubt because the Pali Canon was extensively redacted in the 5th- or 6th-century CE, nearly a thousand years after the death of the Buddha.[10] Further, this redacted Pali Canon of Sri Lanka itself mentions that the compilation had previously been redacted towards the end of 1st-century BCE. According to the Early Buddhism scholar Lars Fogelin, the Pali Canon of Sri Lanka is a modified Canon and "there is no good reason to assume that Sri Lankan Buddhism resembles Early Buddhism in the mainland, and there are numerous reasons to argue that it does not."[57]

One of the edicts of Ashoka, the 'Calcutta-Bairat edict', lists several works from the canon which he considers advantageous. According to Alexander Wynne:

The general consensus seems to be that what Asoka calls Munigatha correspond to the Munisutta (Sn 207-21), Moneyasute is probably the second half of the Nalakasutta (Sn 699-723), and Upatisapasine may correspond to the Sariputtasutta (Sn 955-975). The identification of most of the other titles is less certain, but Schmithausen, following Oldenberg before him, identifies what Asoka calls the Laghulovada with part of a prose text in the Majjhima Nikaya, the Ambalatthika-Rahulovada Sutta (M no.61).[58]

This seems to be evidence which indicates that some of these texts were already fixed by the time of the reign of Ashoka (304–232 BCE), which means that some of the texts carried by the Buddhist missionaries at this time might also have been fixed.[58]

According to the Sri Lankan Mahavamsa, the Pali Canon was written down in the reign of King Vattagāmini (Vaṭṭagāmiṇi) (1st century BCE) in Sri Lanka, at the Fourth Buddhist council. Most scholars hold that little if anything was added to the Canon after this,[59][60][61] though Schopen questions this.

Texts

Manuscripts


Burmese-Pali manuscript copy of the Buddhist text Mahaniddesa, showing three different types of Burmese script, (top) medium square, (centre) round and (bottom) outline round in red lacquer from the inside of one of the gilded covers

The climate of Theravāda countries is not conducive to the survival of manuscripts. Apart from brief quotations in inscriptions and a two-page fragment from the eighth or ninth century found in Nepal, the oldest manuscripts known are from late in the fifteenth century,[62] and there is not very much from before the eighteenth.[63]

Printed editions and digitized editions

The first complete printed edition of the Canon was published in Burma in 1900, in 38 volumes.[64] The following editions of the Pali text of the Canon are readily available in the West:

• Pali Text Society edition (in Roman script), published 1877–1927 (a few volumes subsequently replaced by new editions), in 57 volumes (including indexes).[63]
o The Pali scriptures and some Pali commentaries were digitized as an MS-DOS/extended ASCII compatible database through cooperation between the Dhammakaya Foundation and the Pali Text Society in 1996 as PALITEXT version 1.0: CD-ROM Database of the Entire Buddhist Pali Canon ISBN 978-974-8235-87-5.[65]
• Thai Tipitaka in Thai script, published during the reign of Rama VII (1925–35), 45 volumes, with fewer variant readings than PTS;[66]
o BUDSIR on Internet[67] free with login; and electronic transcript by BUDSIR: Buddhist scriptures information retrieval,[68] CD-ROM and online, both requiring payment.
• Sixth Council Tipiṭaka, Rangoon (1954–56), 40 volumes in Burmese script; with fewer variant readings than the Thai edition;[69]
o electronic transcript by Vipāssana Research Institute available online[70] in searchable database free of charge, or on CD-ROM (p&p only) from the institute.[71]
o Another transcript of this edition, produced under the patronage of the Supreme Patriarch of Thailand, World Tipitaka Edition, 2005, 40 volumes, published by the Dhamma Society Fund,[72] claims to include the full extent of changes made at the Sixth Council, and therefore reflect the results of the council more accurately than some existing Sixth Council editions. Available for viewing online (registration required) at Tipiṭaka Quotation WebService.[73]
• Sinhalese (Buddha Jayanti) edition, (1957–1993?), 58 volumes including parallel Sinhalese translations, searchable, free of charge (not yet fully proofread.) Available at Journal of Buddhist Ethics.[74] The only accurate version of the Sri Lankan text available, in individual page images. Cannot be searched though.[75]
o Transcript in BudhgayaNews Pali Canon.[76] In this version it is easy to search for individual words across all 16,000+ pages at once and view the contexts in which they appear.
• Cambodian Tipiṭaka in Khmer script. Edited and published by the Institut Bouddhique in Phnom Penh (1931–69).[77]
• The Complete Collection of Chinese Pattra Scripture as preserved by the Dai people.[78]

Translations

Pali Canon in English Translation, 1895-, in progress, 43 volumes so far, Pali Text Society, Bristol; for details of these and other translations of individual books see the separate articles. In 1994, the then President of the Pali Text Society stated that most of these translations were unsatisfactory.[79] Another former President said in 2003 that most of the translations were done very badly.[31] The style of many translations from the Canon has been criticized[80] as "Buddhist Hybrid English", a term invented by Paul Griffiths for translations from Sanskrit. He describes it as "deplorable", "comprehensible only to the initiate, written by and for Buddhologists".[81]

Selections: see List of Pali Canon anthologies.

A translation by Bhikkhu Nanamoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi of the Majjhima Nikaya was published by Wisdom Publications in 1995.

Translations by Bhikkhu Bodhi of the Samyutta Nikaya and the Anguttara Nikaya were published by Wisdom Publications in 2003 and 2012, respectively.

In 2018, new translations of the entirety of the five Nikayas were made freely available on the website suttacentral by the Australian Bhikkhu Sujato, the translations were also released into the Public Domain.

A Japanese translation of the Canon, edited by Takakusu Junjiro, was published in 65 volumes from 1935 to 1941 as The Mahātripiṭaka of the Southern Tradition (南伝大蔵経 Nanden daizōkyō).

A Chinese translation of the above-mentioned Japanese translation was undertaken between 1990-1998 and thereafter printed under the patronage of Kaoshiung's Yuan Heng Temple.

Contents of the Canon

As noted above, the Canon consists of three pitakas.

• Vinaya Pitaka (vinayapiṭaka)
• Sutta Pitaka or Suttanta Pitaka
• Abhidhamma Pitaka

Details are given below. For more complete information, see standard references on Pali literature.[82][83]

Vinaya Pitaka

The first category, the Vinaya Pitaka, is mostly concerned with the rules of the sangha, both monks and nuns. The rules are preceded by stories telling how the Buddha came to lay them down, and followed by explanations and analysis. According to the stories, the rules were devised on an ad hoc basis as the Buddha encountered various behavioral problems or disputes among his followers. This pitaka can be divided into three parts:

• Suttavibhanga (-vibhaṅga) Commentary on the Patimokkha, a basic code of rules for monks and nuns that is not as such included in the Canon. The monks' rules are dealt with first, followed by those of the nuns' rules not already covered.
• Khandhaka Other rules grouped by topic in 22 chapters.
• Parivara (parivāra) Analysis of the rules from various points of view.

Sutta Pitaka

The second category is the Sutta Pitaka (literally "basket of threads", or of "the well spoken"; Sanskrit: Sutra Pitaka, following the former meaning) which consists primarily of accounts of the Buddha's teachings. The Sutta Pitaka has five subdivisions, or nikayas:

• Digha Nikaya (dīghanikāya) 34 long discourses.[84] Joy Manné argues[85] that this book was particularly intended to make converts, with its high proportion of debates and devotional material.
• Majjhima Nikaya 152 medium-length discourses.[84] Manné argues[85] that this book was particularly intended to give a solid grounding in the teaching to converts, with a high proportion of sermons and consultations.
• Samyutta Nikaya (saṃyutta-) Thousands of short discourses in fifty-odd groups by subject, person etc. Bhikkhu Bodhi, in his translation, says this nikaya has the most detailed explanations of doctrine.
• Anguttara Nikaya (aṅguttara-) Thousands of short discourses arranged numerically from ones to elevens. It contains more elementary teaching for ordinary people than the preceding three.
• Khuddaka Nikaya A miscellaneous collection of works in prose or verse.

Abhidhamma Pitaka

The third category, the Abhidhamma Pitaka (literally "beyond the dhamma", "higher dhamma" or "special dhamma", Sanskrit: Abhidharma Pitaka), is a collection of texts which give a scholastic explanation of Buddhist doctrines particularly about mind, and sometimes referred to as the "systematic philosophy" basket.[12][44] There are seven books in the Abhidhamma Pitaka:

• Dhammasangani (-saṅgaṇi or -saṅgaṇī) Enumeration, definition and classification of dhammas
• Vibhanga (vibhaṅga) Analysis of 18 topics by various methods, including those of the Dhammasangani
• Dhatukatha (dhātukathā) Deals with interrelations between ideas from the previous two books
• Puggalapannatti (-paññatti) Explanations of types of person, arranged numerically in lists from ones to tens
• Kathavatthu (kathā-) Over 200 debates on points of doctrine
• Yamaka Applies to 10 topics a procedure involving converse questions (e.g. Is X Y? Is Y X?)
• Patthana (paṭṭhāna) Analysis of 24 types of condition[86]

The traditional position is that abhidhamma refers to the absolute teaching, while the suttas are adapted to the hearer. Most scholars describe the abhidhamma as an attempt to systematize the teachings of the suttas:[86][87] Cousins says that where the suttas think in terms of sequences or processes the abhidhamma thinks in terms of specific events or occasions.[88]

Use of Brahmanical Language

The Pali Canon uses many Brahmanical terminology and concepts. For example, the Sundarika Sutta includes an analogy, quoted in several other places in the Canon, where the Buddha describes the Agnihotra as the foremost sacrifice and the Gayatri mantra as the foremost meter:

aggihuttamukhā yaññā sāvittī chandaso mukham.

— Sacrifices have the agnihotra as foremost; of meter the foremost is the Sāvitrī.[89]

These Brahmanical motives are sometimes introduced in order to "establish a link with the deeds and beliefs of Brahmins", referencing "shared ideas" that were part of the culture of ancient India.[90] In many other instances, they are introduced in order to establish unfavorable comparisons with Buddhist teachings or practices- after identifying the fire sacrifice as the foremost of the Brahminist sacrifices, the Buddha goes on to explain how it is surpassed by the kindling of "inner light" that he practices as an arahant.[91]

Comparison with other Buddhist canons

See also: Āgama (Buddhism)

The other two main Buddhist canons in use in the present day are the Chinese Buddhist Canon and the Tibetan Kangyur.

The standard modern edition of the Chinese Buddhist Canon is the Taishō Revised Tripiṭaka, with a hundred major divisions, totaling over 80,000 pages. This includes Vinayas for the Dharmaguptaka, Sarvāstivāda, Mahīśāsaka, and Mahāsaṃghika schools. It also includes the four major Āgamas, which are analogous to the Nikayas of the Pali Canon. Namely, they are the Saṃyukta Āgama, Madhyama Āgama, Dīrgha Āgama, and Ekottara Āgama. Also included are the Dhammapada, the Udāna, the Itivuttaka, and Milindapanha. There are also additional texts, including early histories, that are preserved from the early Buddhist schools but not found in Pali. The canon contains voluminous works of Abhidharma, especially from the Sarvāstivāda school. The Indian works preserved in the Chinese Canon were translated mostly from Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, Classical Sanskrit, or from regional Prakrits. The Chinese generally referred to these simply as "Sanskrit" (Ch. 梵語, Fànyǔ). The first woodblock printing of the entire Chinese Buddhist Canon was done during the Song dynasty by imperial order in China in CE 971; the earliest dated printed Buddhist sutra was the Diamond Sutra printed in CE 868 (printed by an upāsaka for free distribution); although printing of individual Buddhist sutras and related materials may have started as early as the 7th century CE.[92]

The Tibetan Kangyur comprises about a hundred volumes and includes versions of the Vinaya Pitaka, the Dhammapada (under the title Udanavarga) and parts of some other books. Due to the later compilation, it contains comparatively fewer early Buddhist texts than the Pali and Chinese canons.

The Chinese and Tibetan canons are not translations of the Pali and differ from it to varying extents, but contain some recognizably similar early works. However, the Abhidharma books are fundamentally different works from the Pali Abhidhamma Pitaka. The Chinese and Tibetan canons also consist of Mahāyāna sūtras and Vajrayāna tantras, which have few parallels in the Pali Canon.[h]

See also

• Nikāya
• Early Buddhist Texts
• Dhammapada, one of the most widely read and best known Buddhist scriptures
• Pali Literature
• Palm-leaf manuscript
• Atthakatha, Pali commentaries on the Pali Canon
• Paracanonical texts (Theravada Buddhism)
• Aṭṭhakavagga and Pārāyanavagga
• Niddesa
• Theravada Buddhism
• Sacca-kiriya
• Buddhaghosa
• Dhammapāla
• Rerukane Chandawimala Thero
• Nyanatiloka Mahathera
• Nyanaponika Thera
• Ñāṇamoli Bhikkhu
• Bhikkhu Bodhi
• Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu
• Bhikkhu Sujato
• Bhikkhu Analayo
• Thomas William Rhys Davids
• Karl Eugen Neumann
• Pali Text Society
• Dhamma Society Fund
• Buddhist Publication Society
• Pariyatti (bookstore)
• Access to Insight
• Gandhāran Buddhist texts
• Taishō Tripitaka
• Tripitaka Koreana

Notes

1. If the language of the Pāli canon is north Indian in origin, and without substantial Sinhaleseadditions, it is likely that the canon was composed somewhere in north India before its introduction to Sri Lanka.[5]
2. "I am saying that there was a person called the Buddha, that the preachings probably go back to him individually... that we can learn more about what he meant, and that he was saying some very precise things."[31]
3. "While parts of the Pali Canon clearly originated after the time of the Buddha, much must derive from his teaching."[2]
4. "there is no evidence to suggest that it was formulated by anyone else than the Buddha and his immediate followers." [34]
5. "If some of the material is so old, it might be possible to establish what texts go back to the very beginning of Buddhism, texts which perhaps include the substance of the Buddha's teaching, and in some cases, maybe even his words", [5]
6. Ronald Davidson states, "most scholars agree that there was a rough body of sacred literature (disputed) that a relatively early community (disputed) maintained and transmitted."[38]
7. "as the Buddha taught for 45 years, some signs of development in teachings may only reflect changes during this period."[2]
8. Most notably, a version of the Atanatiya Sutta (from the Digha Nikaya) is included in the tantra (Mikkyo, rgyud) divisions of the Taisho and of the Cone, Derge, Lhasa, Lithang, Narthang and Peking (Qianlong) editions of the Kangyur.[93]

References

1. Gombrich 2006, p. 3.
2. Harvey 1990, p. 3.
3. Maguire 2001, p. 69–.
4. Hahn, Thich Nhat (2015). The Heart of Buddha's Teachings. Harmony. p. 16.
5. Wynne 2003.
6. Drewes, David (2015). "Oral Texts in Indian Mahayana". Indo-Iranian Journal. 58: 131. doi:10.1163/15728536-05800051. The idea that Buddhist texts were first written down in the first century bce has been widely current since the nineteenth century, but has never been much more than a guess. Its only basis is a short passage, two verses long, found in both the fourth or fifth-century Dīpavaṃsa and later Mahāvaṃsa,that states that the Tipiṭaka and commentaries were first written down at this time...however, it fairly clearly does not even intend to record the first time writing was ever used for Buddhist texts, but the first creation of a complete set of written scriptures in Sri Lanka.
7. The authenticity of the early buddhist texts.
8. "THE MAHAVAMSA » 33: The Ten Kings". mahavamsa.org. Retrieved 2020-12-24.
9. Robert E. Buswell Jr.; Donald S. Lopez Jr. (2013). The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism. Princeton University Press. p. 924. ISBN 978-1-4008-4805-8.
10. Lars Fogelin (2006). Archaeology of Early Buddhism. AltaMira. p. 13. ISBN 978-0-7591-0750-2., Quote: "As of the Pali Canon of Sri Lanka, it was extensively redacted in the fifth or sixth century A.D. (Bechert 1978; Collins 1990; Trainor 1997)".
11. Stargardt, Janice. Tracing Thoughts Through Things: The Oldest Pali Texts and the Early Buddhist Archaeology of India and Burma., Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2000, page 25.
12. Gombrich 2006, p. 4.
13. Encyclopædia Britannica 2008.
14. Gombrich 2006, p. 20.
15. Gombrich 2006, p. 153-4.
16. Morgan 1956, p. 71.
17. McDaniel 2006, p. 302.
18. Mendelson 1975, p. 266.
19. Brown 2006.
20. Manné 1990, p. 103f.
21. Gethin 1998, p. 43.
22. Book of the Discipline, vol. VI, p. 123[full citation needed]
23. Norman 2005, pp. 75–76.
24. Schopen, Gregory; Lopez Jr., Donald S. (1997). Bones, Stones, And Buddhist Monks: Collected Papers On The Archaeology, Epigraphy, And Texts Of Monastic Buddhism In India. University of Hawaii Press. p. 27. ISBN 0824817486.
25. Witzel, Michael. “Moving Targets? Texts, Language, Archaeology and History in the Late Vedic and Early Buddhist Periods.” Indo-Iranian Journal, vol. 52, no. 2/3, 2009, pp. 287–310. JSTOR 24664702.
26. Von Hinüber, Oskar (1997). A Handbook of Pali Literature (1st Indian ed.). New Delhi: Munishiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd. pp. 4–5. ISBN 81-215-0778-2.
27. Harvey 1995, p. 9.
28. Wynne 2007, p. 4.
29. Payutto, P. A. "The Pali Canon What a Buddhist Must Know" (PDF).
30. *Sujato, Bhante; Brahmali, Bhikkhu (2015), The Authenticity of the Early Buddhist Texts (PDF), Chroniker Press, ISBN 978-1312911505
31. Gombrich (b).
32. Gombrich 2006, pp. 20ff.
33. Peter Harvey
34. Warder 1999, p. inside flap.
35. De Jong 1993, p. 25.
36. Wynne, Alex. "The Oral Transmission of Early Buddhist Literature - Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies (Volume 27. No. 1 2004)".
37. Nakamura 1999, p. 57.
38. Davidson 2003, p. 147.
39. Buswell 2004, p. 10.
40. Ronald Davidson, academic profile Archived November 12, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
41. about Geoffrey Samuel
42. Samuel 2012, p. 48.
43. Schopen 1997, p. 24.
44. Damien Keown (2004). A Dictionary of Buddhism. Oxford University Press. p. 2. ISBN 978-0-19-157917-2.
45. Dī.A. (sumaṅgala.1) Sumaṅgalavilāsinī dīghanikāyaṭṭhakathā sīlakkhandhavaggavaṇṇanā nidānakathā
46. Saṅgaṇi.A. (aṭṭhasālinī) Dhammasaṅgiṇī Abhidhamma-Atthakathā Nidānakathā
47. Warder 1963, p. viii.
48. Cousins 1984, p. 56.
49. Bechert 1984, p. 78.
50. Gethin 1992, pp. 42ff.
51. Gethin 1992.
52. Nakamura 1999, p. 27.
53. Ñāṇamoli 1982, p. xxix.
54. Cousins & 1982/3.
55. Harvey, p. 83
56. Gethin 1992, p. 48.
57. Lars Fogelin (2006). Archaeology of Early Buddhism. AltaMira. pp. 37–38. ISBN 978-0-7591-0750-2.
58. Wynne 2004.
59. Ñāṇamoli 1982, p. xxxix.
60. Gethin 1992, p. 8.
61. Harvey, p. 3
62. von Hinüber 2000, pp. 4–5.
63. "Pali Text Society Home Page". Palitext.com. Retrieved 2012-10-14.
64. Grönbold 1984, p. 12 (as noted there and elsewhere, the 1893 Siamese edition was incomplete).
65. Allon 1997, pp. 109–29.
66. Warder 1963, pp. 382.
67. "BUDSIR for Thai Translation". Budsir.org. Retrieved 2012-10-14.
68. "BUDSIR for Thai Translation". Budsir.mahidol.ac.th. Archived from the original on 2012-07-12. Retrieved 2012-10-15.
69. Hamm 1973.
70. "The Pali Tipitaka". Tipitaka.org. Retrieved 2012-10-14.
71. "Vipassana Research Institute". Vri.dhamma.org. 2009-02-08. Retrieved 2012-10-14.
72. "Society worldtipitaka". Dhammasociety.org. 2007-08-29. Archived from the original on 2007-03-17. Retrieved 2012-10-14.
73. Tipiṭaka Studies
74. Sri Lanka Tripitaka Project
75. "Sri Lankan Pāḷi Texts". Archived from the original on 2012-11-24. Retrieved 2013-01-15.
76. "Pali Canon Online Database". BodhgayaNews. Retrieved 2012-10-14.
77. Marston, John (2004). History, Buddhism, and New Religious Movements in Cambodia, p. 77. University of Hawaii Press.
78. "《中国贝叶经全集》新闻发布会暨出版座谈会_华人佛教_凤凰网". Fo.ifeng.com. Retrieved 2012-10-14.
79. Norman 1996, pp. 80.
80. Journal of the Pali Text Society, Volume XXIX, page 102[full citation needed]
81. Griffiths 1981, pp. 17-32.
82. Norman 1983.
83. von Hinüber 2000, pp. 24-26.
84. Harvey, 1990 & appendix.
85. Manné 1990, pp. 29-88.
86. Harvey 1990, p. 83.
87. Gethin 1998, p. 44.
88. Cousins 1982, p. 7.
89. Shults, Brett (May 2014). "On the Buddha's Use of Some Brahmanical Motifs in Pali Texts". Journal of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies. 6: 119.
90. Shults 2014, p. 120.
91. Shults 2014, p. 123.
92. Jiang, Wu; Chia, Lucille; Chen, Zhichao (2016). Jiang, Wu; Chia, Lucille (eds.). Spreading Buddha's Word in East Asia - The Formation and Transformation of The Chinese Buddhist Canon. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 145. "In the fourth year of the Kaibao 開寶 reign (971), Emperor Taizu (r. 960-975) of the Song Dynasty 宋太祖 ordered the first carving of a set of woodblocks for the Chinese Buddhist Canon." (aka the Kaibao Canon)
93. Skilling 1997, p. 84n, 553ff, 617ff..

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• Bechert, Heinz; Gombrich, Richard F. (1984), The world of buddhism : buddhist monks and nuns in society and culture, London: Thames and Hudson
• Brown, E K; Anderson, Anne (2006), Encyclopedia of language &linguistics, Boston: Elsevier
• BUDSIR (Buddhist scriptures information retrieval) for Thai Translation, retrieved 2012-10-14
• Buswell, Robert E (2004), Encyclopedia of Buddhism, USA: Macmillan Reference
• Cone, Margaret (2001), Dictionary of Pali, vol. I, Oxford: Pali Text Society
• Cousins, L. S. (1984), In Richard Gombrich and K. R. Norman (ed.): Dhammapala, Buddhist studies in honour of Hammalava Saddhatissa, Nugegoda, Sri Lanka: University of Sri Jayawardenapura, p. 56
• Cousins, L. S. (1982), Pali oral literature. In Denwood and Piatigorski, eds.: Buddhist Studies, ancient and modern, London: Curzon Press, pp. 1–11
• Davidson, Ronald M. (2003), Indian Esoteric Buddhism, New York: Indian Esoteric BuddhismColumbia University Press, ISBN 0231126182
• De Jong, J.W. (1993), "The Beginnings of Buddhism", The Eastern Buddhist, 26 (2): 25
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• Gethin, Rupert (1998), Foundations of Buddhism, Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press
• Gethin, Rupert (1992), The Buddha's Path to Awakening, Leiden: E. J. Brill
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• Gombrich, Richard F (2006), Theravada Buddhism (2nd ed.), London: Routledge
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• Grönbold, Günter (1984), Der buddhistische Kanon: eine Bibliographie, Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz
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• Jones, Lindsay (2005), Councils, Buddhist. In: Encyclopedia of religion, Detroit: Macmillan Reference
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Further reading

• Hinüber, Oskar von (2000). A Handbook of Pāli Literature. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-016738-7.
• B. C. Law, History of Pali Literature, volume I, Trubner, London 1931
• Russell Webb (ed.), Analysis of the Pali Canon, The Wheel Publication No 217, Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy, Sri Lanka, 3rd ed. 2008.
• Ko Lay, U. (2003), Guide to Tipiṭaka, Selangor, Malaysia: Burma Piṭaka Association. Editorial Committee, archived from the original on July 24, 2008

External links

• Sayadaw U Vicittasara Mingun Sayadaw: A Fabulous Memory
• Beginnings: The Pali Suttas by Samanera Bodhesako

English translations

• Access to Insight has many suttas translated into English
• Tipitaka Online of Nibbana.com. Burma (Myanmar)
• English translations by Bhikkhu Bodhi of selected suttas of the Majjhima Nikaya are made available by the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition at Wisdom Publications
• English translations by Bhikkhu Bodhi of selected suttas from the Anguttara Nikaya at Wisdom Publications

Pali Canon online

• Vipassana Research Institute (Based on 6th Council – Burmese version) (this site also offers a downloadable program which installs the entire Pali Tipitaka on your desktop for offline viewing)
• Sutta Central Early Buddhist texts, translations, and parallels (Multiple Languages)
• Thai Tripitaka (Thai version)
• Sinhala Tipitaka (Translated into Sinhala by a Government of Sri Lanka initiative)
• Tipitaka Online
• Theravada Buddhism Tipitaka Download

Pali dictionary

• Online Pali-English Dictionary
• Pāli Dictionary Online
• Pāli Dictionary (Pāli to Chinese, Pāli to English, Pāli to Japanese, Pāli-Vietnamese, Pāli-Burmese)

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Buddhahood
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/14/21

For the historical founder of Buddhism, see Gautama Buddha.
"Buddhas" redirects here. For other uses, see Buddha (disambiguation).


The Buddha, in Greco-Buddhist style, first-second century, Gandhara (now Pakistan). (Standing Buddha).


A painting of the Adibuddha, Vajradhara, a figure of the Indo-Tibetan Buddhist tradition

In Buddhism, Buddha (/ˈbuːdə, ˈbʊdə/), "awakened one,"[1] is a title for someone who is awake, and has attained nirvana and Buddhahood. The title is most commonly used for Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, who is often simply known as "the Buddha". Buddhahood (Sanskrit: buddhatva; Pali: buddhatta or buddhabhāva; Chinese: 成佛) is the condition and rank of a buddha "awakened one".[2] This highest spiritual state of being is also termed Samyaksaṃbodhi (Full complete Awakening).

The title is also used for other beings who have achieved bodhi (awakening), such as the other human Buddhas who achieved enlightenment before Gautama, the five celestial Buddhas worshiped primarily in Mahayana, and the bodhisattva named Maitreya, who will achieve enlightenment in the future and succeed Gautama Buddha as the supreme Buddha of the world.

The goal of Mahayana's bodhisattva path is complete Buddhahood, so that one may benefit all sentient beings by teaching them the path of cessation of dukkha.[3] Mahayana theory contrasts this with the goal of the Theravada path, where the most common goal is individual arhatship.[3]

Definition

Buddhahood is the state of an awakened being, who, having found the path of cessation of dukkha[4] ("suffering", as created by attachment to desires and distorted perception and thinking) is in the state of "No-more-Learning".[5][6][7]

There is a broad spectrum of opinion on the universality and method of attainment of Buddhahood, depending on Gautama Buddha's teachings that a school of Buddhism emphasizes. The level to which this manifestation requires ascetic practices varies from none at all to an absolute requirement, dependent on doctrine. Mahayana Buddhism emphasizes the bodhisattva ideal instead of the Arhat.

In Theravada Buddhism, Buddha refers to one who has become awake through their own efforts and insight, without a teacher to point out the dharma (Sanskrit; Pali dhamma; "right way of living"). A samyaksambuddha re-discovered the truths and the path to awakening and teaches these to others after his awakening. A pratyekabuddha also reaches Nirvana through his own efforts, but does not teach the dharma to others. An arhat needs to follow the teaching of a Buddha to attain Nirvana, but can also preach the dharma after attaining Nirvana.[8] In one instance the term buddha is also used in Theravada to refer to all who attain Nirvana, using the term Sāvakabuddha to designate an arhat, someone who depends on the teachings of a Buddha to attain Nirvana.[9] In this broader sense it is equivalent to the arhat.

The Tathagatagarba and Buddha-nature doctrines of Mahayana Buddhism consider Buddhahood to be a universal and innate property of absolute wisdom. This wisdom is revealed in a person's current lifetime through Buddhist practice, without any specific relinquishment of pleasures or "earthly desires".

Buddhists do not consider Gautama to have been the only Buddha. The Pāli Canon refers to many previous ones (see list of the named Buddhas), while the Mahayana tradition additionally has many Buddhas of celestial origin (see Amitābha or Vairocana as examples. For lists of many thousands of Buddha names see Taishō Tripiṭaka numbers 439–448).

Nature of the Buddha

Further information: Buddhology

The various Buddhist schools hold some varying interpretations on the nature of Buddha (see below).

Attainments


Seated Buddha, from the Seokguram, Korea.

All Buddhist traditions hold that a Buddha is fully awakened and has completely purified his mind of the three poisons of craving, aversion and ignorance. A Buddha is no longer bound by saṃsāra, and has ended the suffering which unawakened people experience in life.

Most schools of Buddhism have also held that the Buddha was omniscient. However, the early texts contain explicit repudiations of making this claim of the Buddha.[10][11]

Ten characteristics of a Buddha

Some Buddhists meditate on (or contemplate) the Buddha as having ten characteristics (Ch./Jp. 十號). These characteristics are frequently mentioned in the Pāli Canon as well as Mahayana teachings, and are chanted daily in many Buddhist monasteries:

1. Thus gone, thus come (Skt: tathāgata)
2. Worthy one (Skt: arhat)
3. Perfectly self-enlightened (Skt: samyak-saṃbuddha)
4. Perfected in knowledge and conduct (Skt: vidyā-caraṇa-saṃpanna )
5. Well gone (Skt: sugata)
6. Knower of the world (Skt: lokavida)
7. Unsurpassed (Skt: anuttara)
8. Leader of persons to be tamed (Skt: puruṣa-damya-sārathi)
9. Teacher of the gods and humans (Skt: śāsta deva-manuṣyāṇaṃ)
10. The Blessed One or fortunate one (Skt: bhagavat)[12]

The tenth epithet is sometimes listed as "The World Honored Enlightened One" (Skt. Buddha-Lokanatha) or "The Blessed Enlightened One" (Skt. Buddha-Bhagavan).[13]

Ten Indispensable Duties of a Buddha

According to Buddhist texts, upon reaching Buddhahood each Buddha must perform ten acts during his life to complete his duty as a Buddha.[14]

1. A Buddha must predict that another person will attain Buddhahood in the future.
2. A Buddha must inspire somebody else to strive for Buddhahood.
3. A Buddha must convert all whom he must convert
4. A Buddha must live at least three-quarters of his potential lifespan.
5. A Buddha must have clearly defined what are good deeds and what are evil deeds.
6. A Buddha must appoint two of his disciples as his chief disciples.
7. A Buddha must descend from Tavatimsa Heaven after teaching his mother.
8. A Buddha must hold an assembly at Lake Anavatapta.
9. A Buddha must bring his parents to the Dhamma.
10. A Buddha must have performed the great Miracle at Savatthi.

Buddha as a supreme human

In the Pāli Canon, Gautama Buddha is known as being a "teacher of the gods and humans", superior to both the gods and humans in the sense of having nirvana or the greatest bliss, whereas the devas, or gods, are still subject to anger, fear and sorrow.

In the Madhupindika Sutta (MN 18),[15] Buddha is described in powerful terms as the Lord of the Dhamma (Pali: Dhammasami, skt.: Dharma Swami) and the bestower of immortality (Pali: Amatassadata).

Similarly, in the Anuradha Sutta (SN 44.2)[16] Buddha is described as

the Tathagata—the supreme man, the superlative man, attainer of the superlative attainment.

[Buddha is asked about what happens to the Tathagatha after death of the physical body. Buddha replies],

"And so, Anuradha—when you can't pin down the Tathagata as a truth or reality even in the present life—is it proper for you to declare, 'Friends, the Tathagata—the supreme man, the superlative man, attainer of the superlative attainment—being described, is described otherwise than with these four positions: The Tathagata exists after death, does not exist after death, both does & does not exist after death, neither exists nor does not exist after death'?

In the Vakkali Sutta (SN 22.87) Buddha identifies himself with the Dhamma:[17]

O Vakkali, whoever sees the Dhamma, sees me [the Buddha]

Another reference from the Aggañña Sutta of the Digha Nikaya, says to his disciple Vasettha:

O Vasettha! The Word of Dhammakaya is indeed the name of the Tathagata

Shravasti Dhammika, a Theravada monk, writes:

In the centuries after his final Nibbāna it sometimes got to the stage that the legends and myths obscured the very real human being behind them and the Buddha came to be looked upon as a god. Actually, the Buddha was a human being, not a 'mere human being' as is sometimes said but a special class of human called a 'complete person' (mahāparisa). Such complete persons are born no different from others and indeed they physically remain quite ordinary.[18]

Sangharakshita also states that "The first thing we have to understand—and this is very important—is that the Buddha is a human being. But a special kind of human being, in fact the highest kind, so far as we know."[19]

In Buddhism the idea of superman completely replaces the idea of the Deity; because Buddha is not God, he is only a superman.

-- A New Model of the Universe, by Pyotr Ouspenskii

Buddha as a human

When asked whether he was a deva or a human, he replied that he had eliminated the deep-rooted unconscious traits that would make him either one, and should instead be called a Buddha; one who had grown up in the world but had now gone beyond it, as a lotus grows from the water but blossoms above it, unsoiled.[20]

Andrew Skilton writes that the Buddha was never historically regarded by Buddhist traditions as being merely human:[21]

It is important to stress that, despite modern Theravada teachings to the contrary (often a sop to skeptical Western pupils), he was never seen as being merely human. For instance, he is often described as having the thirty-two major and eighty minor marks or signs of a mahāpuruṣa, "superman"; the Buddha himself denied that he was either a man or a god; and in the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta he states that he could live for an aeon were he asked to do so.

However, Thích Nhất Hạnh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk in the Zen tradition, states that "Buddha was not a god. He was a human being like you and me, and he suffered just as we do."[22]

Jack Maguire writes that Buddha is inspirational based on his humanness.

A fundamental part of Buddhism's appeal to billions of people over the past two and a half millennia is the fact that the central figure, commonly referred to by the title "Buddha", was not a god, or a special kind of spiritual being, or even a prophet or an emissary of one. On the contrary, he was a human being like the rest of us who quite simply woke up to full aliveness.[23]

Basing his teachings on the Lotus Sutra, the Chinese monk Chi-hi (the founder of the Tendai Sect) developed an explanation of life "three thousand realms in a single moment", which posits a Buddha nature that can be awakened in any life,[24] and that it is possible for a person to become "enlightened to the Law".[25] In this view, the state of Buddhahood and the states of ordinary people are exist with and within each other.[26]

Nichiren, the founder of Nichiren Buddhism states that the real meaning of the Lord Shakyamuni Buddha’s appearance in this world lay in his behavior as a human being.[27]:336¬-37 He also stated that "Shakyamuni Buddha . . . the Lotus Sutra ... and we ordinary human beings are in no way different or separate from each other".[28][better source needed]

Mahāsāṃghika supramundane Buddha

In the early Buddhist schools, the Mahāsāṃghika branch regarded the buddhas as being characterized primarily by their supramundane nature. The Mahāsāṃghikas advocated the transcendental and supramundane nature of the buddhas and bodhisattvas, and the fallibility of arhats.[29] Of the 48 special theses attributed by the Samayabhedoparacanacakra to the Mahāsāṃghika Ekavyāvahārika, Lokottaravāda, and the Kukkuṭika, 20 points concern the supramundane nature of buddhas and bodhisattvas.[30] According to the Samayabhedoparacanacakra, these four groups held that the Buddha is able to know all dharmas in a single moment of the mind.[31] Yao Zhihua writes:[31]

In their view, the Buddha is equipped with the following supernatural qualities: transcendence (lokottara), lack of defilements, all of his utterances preaching his teaching, expounding all his teachings in a single utterance, all of his sayings being true, his physical body being limitless, his power (prabhāva) being limitless, the length of his life being limitless, never tiring of enlightening sentient beings and awakening pure faith in them, having no sleep or dreams, no pause in answering a question, and always in meditation (samādhi).

A doctrine ascribed to the Mahāsāṃghikas is, "The power of the tathāgatas is unlimited, and the life of the buddhas is unlimited."[32] According to Guang Xing, two main aspects of the Buddha can be seen in Mahāsāṃghika teachings: the true Buddha who is omniscient and omnipotent, and the manifested forms through which he liberates sentient beings through skillful means.[33] For the Mahāsaṃghikas, the historical Gautama Buddha was one of these transformation bodies (Skt. nirmāṇakāya), while the essential real Buddha is equated with the Dharmakāya.[34]

As in Mahāyāna traditions, the Mahāsāṃghikas held the doctrine of the existence of many contemporaneous buddhas throughout the ten directions.[35] In the Mahāsāṃghika Lokānuvartana Sūtra, it is stated, "The Buddha knows all the dharmas of the countless buddhas of the ten directions."[35] It is also stated, "All buddhas have one body, the body of the Dharma."[35] The concept of many bodhisattvas simultaneously working toward buddhahood is also found among the Mahāsāṃghika tradition, and further evidence of this is given in the Samayabhedoparacanacakra, which describes the doctrines of the Mahāsāṃghikas.[36]

Lists of Buddhas


"The Seven Buddhas", at Sanchi (1st century BCE/CE). Six Buddhas of the past are represented, together with the current Buddha, Gautama Buddha, with his Bodhi Tree (at the extreme right). In the central section are three stupas alternating with four trees with thrones in front of them, adored by figures both human and divine. These represent six Buddhas of the past (namely: Vipassī Buddha, Sikhī Buddha, Vessabhū Buddha, Kakusandha Buddha, Koṇāgamana Buddha and Kassapa Buddha). Three are symbolized by their stupas, and four by the trees under which each respectively attained enlightenment. The tree on the extreme right is the pipal tree of Gautama Buddha and the one next to it is the banyan tree of Kassapa Buddha. The identification of the others is less certain.[37]


Sumedha, the youth who would after many reincarnations become Gautama Buddha, receiving his niyatha vivarana (prediction of future Buddhahood) from Dīpankara Buddha

The Seven Buddhas of Antiquity

In the earliest strata of Pali Buddhist texts, especially in the first four Nikayas, only the following seven Buddhas, The Seven Buddhas of Antiquity (Saptatathāgata), are explicitly mentioned and named:

1. Vipassī
2. Sikhī
3. Vessabhū
4. Kakusandha
5. Koṇāgamana
6. Kasyapa
7. Gautama

One sutta called Cakkavatti-Sīhanāda Sutta from an early Buddhist text called the Digha Nikaya also mentions that following the Seven Buddhas of Antiquity, a Buddha named Maitreya is predicted to arise in the world.[38]

However, according to a text in the Theravada Buddhist tradition from a later strata (between 1st and 2nd century BCE) called the Buddhavamsa, twenty-one more Buddhas were added to the list of seven names in the early texts.[39][40] Theravada tradition maintains that there can be up to five Buddhas in a kalpa or world age and that the current kalpa has had four Buddhas, with the current Buddha, Gotama, being the fourth and the future Buddha Metteyya being the fifth and final Buddha of the kalpa. This would make the current aeon a bhadrakalpa (fortunate aeon). In some Sanskrit and northern Buddhist traditions however, a bhadrakalpa has up to 1,000 Buddhas, with the Buddhas Gotama and Metteyya also being the fourth and fifth Buddhas of the kalpa respectively.[41]

According to the Theravada tradition, of the seven Buddhas named in the early Buddhist texts four are from the current kalpa and three are from past ones.[41]

1. Vipassī (lived ninety-one kalpas ago)
2. Sikhī (lived thirty-one kalpas ago)
3. Vessabhū (lived thirty-one kalpas ago in the same kalpa as Sikhī)
4. Kakusandha (the first Buddha of the current bhadrakalpa)
5. Koṇāgamana (the second Buddha of the current bhadrakalpa)
6. Kassapa (the third Buddha of the current bhadrakalpa)
7. Gautama (the fourth and present Buddha of the current bhadrakalpa)


"Budha-sa Konākamana-sa" ("Of the Kanakamuni Buddha") inscription in the Brahmi Script, at Nigali Sagar, 250 BCE


The words "Bu-dhe" and "Sa-kya-mu-nī" in Brahmi script, on the Rummindei pillar of Ashoka.

The Koṇāgamana Buddha, is mentioned in a 3rd-century BCE inscription by Ashoka at Nigali Sagar, in today's Nepal. There is an Ashoka pillar at the site today. Ashoka's inscription in the Brahmi script is on the fragment of the pillar still partly buried in the ground. The inscription made when Emperor Asoka at Nigali Sagar in 249 BCE records his visit, the enlargement of a stupa dedicated to the Kanakamuni Buddha, and the erection of a pillar.[42][43]

According to Xuanzang, Koṇāgamana's relics were held in a stupa in Nigali Sagar, in what is now Kapilvastu District in southern Nepal.[44]

The historical Buddha, Gautama, also called Sakyamuni ("Sage of the Shakyas), is mentioned epigraphically on the Pillar of Ashoka at Rummindei (Lumbini in modern Nepal). The Brahmi script inscription on the pillar gives evidence that Ashoka, emperor of the Maurya Empire, visited the place in 3rd-century BCE and identified it as the birth-place of the Buddha.[45][note 1]

When King Devānāmpriya Priyadasin had been anointed twenty years, he came himself and worshipped (this spot) because the Buddha Shakyamuni was born here. (He) both caused to be made a stone bearing a horse (?) and caused a stone pillar to be set up, (in order to show) that the Blessed One was born here. (He) made the village of Lummini free of taxes, and paying (only) an eighth share (of the produce).

— The Rummindei Edict, one of the Minor Pillar Edicts of Ashoka.[48]

The 29 Buddhas of Theravāda


Buddhist men at the Sule Pagoda in Yangon, Myanmar, paying homage to the 29 Buddhas described in Chapter 27 of the Buddhavamsa

The Pali literature of the Theravāda tradition includes tales of 29 Buddhas. In countries where Theravāda Buddhism is practiced by the majority of people, such as Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, it is customary for Buddhists to hold elaborate festivals, especially during the fair weather season, paying homage to the 29 Buddhas described in the Buddhavamsa. The Buddhavamsa is a text which describes the life of Gautama Buddha and the 27 Buddhas who preceded him, along with the future Metteyya Buddha.[49] The Buddhavamsa is part of the Khuddaka Nikāya, which in turn is part of the Sutta Piṭaka. The Sutta Piṭaka is one of three main sections of the Pāli Canon.

The first three of these Buddhas—Taṇhaṅkara, Medhaṅkara, and Saraṇaṅkara—lived before the time of Dīpankara Buddha. The fourth Buddha, Dīpankara, is especially important, as he was the Buddha who gave niyatha vivarana (prediction of future Buddhahood) to the Brahmin youth who would in the distant future become the bodhisattva Gautama Buddha.[50] After Dīpankara, 25 more noble people (ariya-puggala) would attain enlightenment before Gautama, the historical Buddha.

Many Buddhists also pay homage to the future (and 29th) Buddha, Metteyya. According to Buddhist scripture, Metteya will be a successor of Gautama who will appear on Earth, achieve complete enlightenment, and teach the pure Dharma. The prophecy of the arrival of Metteyya is found in the canonical literature of all Buddhist sects (Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana), and is accepted by most Buddhists as a statement about an event that will take place when the Dharma will have been forgotten on Jambudvipa (the terrestrial realm, where ordinary human beings live).

Pāli name[51][52][53] / Sanskrit name / Class(Varṇa)[52][53] / Birthplace[52][53] / Parents[52][53] / Bodhirukka (tree of enlightenment)[52][53][54] / Incarnation of Gautama[53]

1 Taṇhaṅkara Tṛṣṇaṃkara Kshatriya Popphavadi King Sunandha and Queen Sunandhaa Rukkaththana
2 Medhaṅkara Medhaṃkara Yaghara Sudheva and Yasodhara Kaela
3 Saraṇaṅkara Śaraṇaṃkara Vipula Sumangala and Yasawathi Pulila
4 Dīpaṃkara Dīpaṃkara Brahmin Rammawatinagara Sudheva and Sumedhaya Pipphala Sumedha (also Sumati or Megha Mānava, a rich Brahman)[55]
5 Koṇḍañña Kauṇḍinya Kshatriya Rammawatinagara Sunanda and Sujata Salakalyana Vijitawi (a Chakravarti in Chandawatinagara of Majjhimadesa)
6 Maṅgala Maṃgala [56] Uttaranagara (Majhimmadesa) Uttara (father) and Uttara (mother) A naga Suruchi (in Siribrahmano)
7 Sumana Sumanas Kshatriya[56] Mekhalanagara Sudassana and Sirima A naga King Atulo, a Naga
8 Revata[57] Raivata Brahmin[56] Sudhannawatinagara Vipala and Vipula A naga A Veda-versed Brahman
9 Sobhita Śobhita Kshatriya[56] Sudhammanagara Sudhammanagara (father) and Sudhammanagara (mother) A naga Sujata, a Brahman (in Rammavati)
10 Anomadassi Anavamadarśin Brahmin[56] Chandawatinagara Yasava and Yasodara Ajjuna A Yaksha king
11 Paduma[58] Padma Kshatriya[56] Champayanagara Asama (father) and Asama (mother) Salala A lion
12 Nārada Nārada Kshatriya Dhammawatinagara King Sudheva and Anopama Sonaka A tapaso in Himalayas
13 Padumuttara[59] Padmottara Kshatriya Hansawatinagara Anurula and Sujata Salala Jatilo, an ascetic
14 Sumedha Sumedha Kshatriya Sudasananagara Sumedha (father) and Sumedha (mother) Nipa Native of Uttaro
15 Sujāta Sujāta Kshatriya Sumangalanagara Uggata and Pabbavati Welu A chakravarti
16 Piyadassi[60] Priyadarśin Brahmin Sudannanagara Sudata and Subaddha Kakudha Kassapa, a Brahmin (at Siriwattanagara)
17 Atthadassi Arthadarśin Kshatriya Sonanagara Sagara and Sudassana Champa Susino, a Brahman
18 Dhammadassī Dharmadarśin Kshatriya Surananagara Suranamaha and Sunanada Bimbajala Indra, the leader of the gods (devas)
19 Siddhattha Siddhārtha Brahmin Vibharanagara Udeni and Suphasa Kanihani Mangal, a Brahman
20 Tissa Tiṣya Kshatriya Khemanagara Janasando and Paduma Assana King Sujata of Yasawatinagara
21 Phussa[61] Puṣya Kshatriya Kāśi Jayasena and Siremaya Amalaka Vijitavi
22 Vipassī Vipaśyin Kshatriya Bandhuvatinagara Vipassi (father) and Vipassi (mother) Pāṭalī (Stereospermum chelonoides) King Atula
23 Sikhī Śikhin Kshatriya Arunavattinagara Arunavatti and Paphavatti Puṇḍarīka (Mangifera indica) Arindamo (at Paribhuttanagara)
24 Vessabhū Viśvabhū Kshatriya Anupamanagara Suppalittha and Yashavati Sāla (Shorea robusta) Sadassana (in Sarabhavatinagara)
25 Kakusandha Krakucchanda Brahmin Khemavatinagara Aggidatta, the purohita Brahman of King Khema, and Visakha Sirīsa (Albizia lebbeck) King Khema[62]
26 Koṇāgamana Kanakamuni Brahmin[63] Sobhavatinagara Yaññadatta, a Brahman, and Uttara Udumbara (Ficus racemosa) King Pabbata of a mountainous area in Mithila
27 Kassapa[64] Kāśyapa Brahmin Baranasinagara Brahmadatta, a Brahman, and Dhanavati Nigrodha (Ficus benghalensis) Jotipala (at Vappulla)
28 Gotama (current) Gautama (current) Kshatriya Lumbini King Suddhodana and Māyā Assattha (Ficus religiosa) Gautama, the Buddha
29 Metteyya Maitreya Brahmin[65] Ketumatī[66] Subrahma and Brahmavati[66] Nāga (Mesua ferrea)

Mahayana Buddhas


The Great Buddha of Kamakura, a Japanese statue of Amida, cast in the 13th century.

Mahayana Buddhists venerate numerous Buddhas, that are not found in early Buddhism or in Theravada Buddhism. They are generally seen as living in other realms, known as Buddhafields or Pure Lands. They are sometimes called "celestial Buddhas", since they are not from this earth.

Some of the key Mahayana Buddhas are:

• Akshobhya ("the Imperturbable")
• Amitābha (Amida Buddha, "Infinite Light"), principal Buddha of Pure Land Buddhism
• Amoghasiddhi (“Infallible Success”)
• Bhaisajyaguru (also known as Medicine Buddha)
• Ratnasambhava ("Jewel Born")
• Vairocana ("the Illuminator")
• Lokesvararaja

In Tantric Buddhism


Painting of Vajrayoginī (Dorjé Neljorma), a female Buddha in Tibetan Buddhism.

In Tantric Buddhism (Vajrayana), one finds some of the same Mahayana Buddhas along with other Buddha figures which are unique to Vajrayana. There are five primary Buddhas known as the "Five Tathagathas": Vairocana, Aksobhya, Ratnasambhava, Amitābha, and Amoghasiddhi. Each is associated with a different consort, direction, aggregate (or, aspect of the personality), emotion, element, color, symbol, and mount.[67] Buddhist Tantra also includes several female Buddhas, such as Tara, the most popular female Buddha in Tibetan Buddhism, who comes in many forms and colors.

In the tantras, there are various fierce deities which are tantric forms of the Buddhas. These may be fierce (Tibetan: trowo, Sanskrit: krodha) Buddha forms or semi-fierce, and may appear in sexual union with a female Buddha or as a "solitary hero". The Herukas (Tb. khrag 'thung, lit. "blood drinker") are enlightened masculine beings who adopt fierce forms to help beings. They include Yamantaka, Cakrasamvara, Hevajra, Mahākāla, and Vajrakilaya. Dakinis (Tb. khandroma, "sky-goer") are their feminine counterparts, sometimes depicted with a heruka and sometimes as independent deities. The most prevalent wrathful dakinis are Vajrayogini, Vajravārāhī, Nairatmya, and Kurukullā.

Buddhist mythology overlapped with Hindu mythology. Akshobhya, for example, acquires a fierce Tantric form that is reminiscent of the fierce form of the Hindu god Shiva; in this form he became known by the Buddhist names Heruka, Hevajra, or Samvara. He is known in Japan in this guise as Fudō (“Imperturbable”). The Indian god Bhairava, a fierce bull-headed divinity, was adopted by Tantric Buddhists as Vajrabhairava. Also called Yamantaka (“Slayer of Death”) and identified as the fierce expression of the gentle Manjushri, he was accorded quasi-buddha rank.

There is also the idea of the Adi-Buddha, the "first Buddha" to attain Buddhahood. Variously named as Vajradhara, Samantabhadra and Vairocana, the first Buddha is also associated with the concept of Dharmakaya. Some historical figures are also seen as Buddhas, such as the Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna, Tibetan historical figures like Padmasambhava, and Tsongkhapa.

Depictions of the Buddha in art

Main article: Buddharupa


Buddha statues at Shwedagon Pagoda

Buddhas are frequently represented in the form of statues and paintings. Commonly seen designs include:

• The Seated Buddha
• The Reclining Buddha
• The Standing Buddha
• Hotei or Budai, the obese Laughing Buddha, usually seen in China (This figure is bel

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Part 1 of 2

One Buddha, 15 Buddhas, 1,000 Buddhas
by Richard Salomon
Library of Congress
November 15, 2018



Dr. Richard Salomon (University of Washington) will discuss the Library's unique buddhist birch-bark manuscript, which describes the parallel lives of fifteen Buddhas of the past, present and future eons.

About this Item

Title

One Buddha, 15 Buddhas, 1,000 Buddhas

Summary

Richard Salomon discussed the Library's unique Buddhist birch-bark manuscript from the ancient region of Gandhara in modern-day Afghanistan and Pakistan. This text is one of the oldest Buddhist manuscripts ever discovered, dating from around the beginning of the Common Era. Salomon explained the manuscript's significance in Buddhist literature and history.

Event Date

November 15, 2018

Notes

Richard G. Salomon is emeritus professor of Sanskrit and Buddhist studies at the University of Washington in Seattle. In addition to being the director of the British Library and University of Washington's early Buddhist Manuscript Project, he is the author of many publications on early Buddhism. His most recent book is "Buddhist Literature of Ancient Gandhara: An Introduction with Selected Translations."

Running Time

1 hours 15 minutes 3 seconds

Highlights:

[T]hese manuscripts date between the first century BC and the third century AD...they are clearly the oldest manuscripts of any manifestation of Buddhism…

[S]ometimes the front and the back are completely separated and it's not always...obvious where and how they go together…

[T]he title...would've been at the top of the back and that's the part that we don't have…we're missing the beginning and the end of the text…

Gandharan Buddhist sculpture...In the Freer Gallery, there's this very amazing set of four friezes illustrating the four major events of the Buddha's life…

But...these are not mentioned at all in that text because the...biography that I'm going to be talking about is not a conventional biography…

The Gandhari language is...almost always connected with the Kharosthi script...The Kharosthi script is of Western...Semitic origin derived or connected with the Aramaic script…

[T]he "Many Buddhas Sutra" - I would describe it as a combined comparative biographical summary of the lives of 15 Buddhas beginning with Dipankara, who lived many billions of years ago, and ending with Sakyamuni or Siddharta or "our Buddha" as he's sometimes called. And then going on one more to Maitreya...Number 14 is Sakyamuni who actually is Sakyamuni the second, surprisingly…

There are seven points of information which are enumerated for each of the Buddhas. So it starts out with the predictions…made by each of the 15 Buddhas…The lifespan tells you how long each Buddha lasted. So it's not a narrative presentation. It's a summary of information…

[A]nother polytext called Buddhavamsa...lists 25 buddhas…the Mahavastu...has a...long list, 331,140,263 buddhas from the remote inconceivable past down to the present time of Sakyamuni….

I have a larger vision or fantasy of original Indian Buddhism as an ocean with many icebergs, each representing the local textual traditions...of the different parts of the Indian world. Those icebergs are mostly gone...We have the Pali canon...the partial Sanskrit canon...They had a common core but they had many different texts in and around that basic commonality... and... there's no hope of finding them mainly for a simple physical reason, the climate of...India proper is such that organic materials...never last for more than a few hundred years. There are really no really old manuscripts in India proper. You only get the ancient manuscripts from the borderlands of India, in this case Gandhara which has a more moderate climate…

Q. [S]ay something about how...we get manuscripts…

A. Yes, that's a little bit complicated. The problem is that in nearly all cases we don't really know where the manuscripts come from...Almost all of the manuscripts of this type have come up through private collections or antiquities market and that is frankly a murky place...most of them come from eastern Afghanistan, maybe some from northwestern Pakistan...that's all we really know. There are no cases where we have any of these manuscripts and know specifically...where they came from…

I talked about that list in the Mahavastu of 331,140,263 buddhas. What I didn't say is that out of the...331 [million], 300 million were named Sakyamuni. And according to that text, there were...30 million buddhas in a row that...all had the same name… Buddhas are...more or less the same and...you see sets of buddhas like the seven buddhas...and they're all almost exactly the same...and they can be very similar and sometimes they are absolutely identical.

B00:00:12

>> Qi Qiu: Okay, so I am literally in the spot. Okay, this is the first experience for us to host such an event here in the Asian Reading Room. So my name is Qi Qiu, Head of Scholarly Services at the Asian Reading Room. So on behalf of the Asian Division, I welcome you to this afternoon's event and to our reading room. I especially appreciate your coming out this afternoon on such a, you know, snowy, rainy day. It's not the best day but we do appreciate your efforts. So for this afternoon's program, after my welcome remarks, Dr. Jonathan Loar, who is our South Asian librarian, he will give an introduction of our South Asian collection and will also introduce our speaker, Dr. Richard Solomon from the University of Washington. So, as you have already seen, this is a beautiful reading room. And if you haven't had a chance to know more about it, here are some highlights of our facilities and services. I know many of you. I see some familiar faces. Some of you are very familiar with our services. So pardon me for the repetition. I will just take a few minutes. So this reading room is home to multilanguage reference materials on Asian studies. It is also where users can access both physical and digital materials in Asian language and get research assistance from our reference specialists. We started collecting Asian language materials as early as the late 19th century. And today, the collections have grown to represent one of the most comprehensive collections of Asian studies in the world, that is more than four million physical items and numerous digital resources. These items are in over 190 languages and include most subject fields covering in the area ranging from the South Asian subcontinent and Southeast Asia to East Asia. So our reading room, the Asian Reading Room opens Monday to Friday from 8:30 to 5:00 p.m. Any users 16 years old or older can come to use the library reading rooms. All you need to do is to bring a photo ID and get a reader registration card, which is also located on the first floor of the Jefferson Building. Of course, it's always a good idea to check out our website and library catalogue before you come to the library so that you can find the materials that you are looking for and make better uses of your time in the library. On our website, you can use a link marked "Ask a Librarian" to ask research questions, to request materials and to make appointments with librarians to use rare items. So "Ask a Librarian" is an important phrase for you to remember. It is actually the tour to find answers to almost all of your inquiries. Also on the website, you can find information on our collections, databases, digital collections, research guides, and blogs. And yes, we do have social medial representations. We have blogs and we have a Facebook page of all of the international collections in our library. So since Florence Tan Moeson Fellowship for this year just opened, I would like to raise your attention to this fellowship that funds researchers to come to our reading room to conduct research. You can check out the application information on our website or on our Facebook page. The deadline for application is the end of January. So we would encourage you to spread words among your colleagues, friends, and students who are interested in coming out to DC and to use our collection materials for their research projects. So with that, I will hand it over to Jonathan Loar for a brief introduction of our Southeast Asian collection. Thank you.

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>> Jonathan Loar: Welcome everybody. Welcome to the Asian Reading Room of the Library of Congress. My name is Jonathan Loar and I'm the reference librarian for the South Asian collection, which contains materials for Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives. So before we get started, I just wanted to give a very, very brief overview of our South Asian collection, which contains approximately 330,000 monographic volumes, more than 1000 journals, and over 68,000 titles on microform in over 100 languages of the South Asian region. So that means we have substantial holdings in Hindi, Urdu, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Pali, Prakrit and many other languages. Most of this acquisition comes from the library's two overseas offices, one in New Delhi established in 1962 and one in Islamabad established in 1965. On the countertops here in the reading room, you'll see some samples from our collections, books about Buddhism in general and about the ancient region of Gandhara, in particular, both in English and also in Asian languages. We invite everyone to come and spend some time here with our collections in the Asian Reading Room. And as Dr. Qiu just said, if you have a question about our collections, we have our "Ask a Librarian" service to answer anything pertaining to your research or general curiosity.

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I would also like to remind everyone here today that today's program will be recorded and later released as a webcast. So please turn off or silence your mobile phones and other devices and also place hold your questions until the end. And please be advised that any questions you may ask during the Q&A will be recorded and the act of asking a question constitutes permission for us to record and broadcast later as part of our webcast. For South Asia at the Library of Congress, I believe you could call the subject of today's lecture a top treasure, namely the birch bark scrolls from the ancient Buddhist region of Gandhara. And to get to know this treasure, there is no better resource than the experts on the history, language and culture out of which this manuscript came to be. Dr. Richard Solomon is emeritus professor of Sanskrit and Buddhist studies at the University of Washington in Seattle. In addition to being the director of the British library and University of Washington's early Buddhist Manuscript Project, he is the author of many publications on early Buddhism, many of which are on display here at the Asian Reading Room today. His most recent book, his fourth on Gandhara manuscripts, is titled "Buddhist Literature of Ancient Gandhara: An Introduction with Selected Translations." Translation number eight in this book is "The Many Buddhas Sutra," which is the scroll here at the Library of Congress. And now for more on this scroll, I'd like to welcome Dr. Richard Solomon.

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[ Applause ]
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>> Richard Solomon: Can you hear me okay? Is the microphone on? I don't have a good projecting voice. So I want to be sure you all can hear. So first of all, thank you, thanks to John for the very nice introduction. Second, I want to thank you all for being here. When I saw the weather this afternoon, I had the concern that I was going to just be speaking to an empty room this evening but I see that you've all braved the nasty weather to come and I thank you for that and I will try to make it worth the effort. So I'm going to start my presentation with a description of the physical characteristics of the manuscript. Contents and significance will come later. So the manuscript is called, as you see here -- Next slide. The title of the manuscript or, to be accurate, the title which I attribute to the manuscript is "The Many Buddhas Sutra," which is my translation of the conjectural title, original title. It's not actually there on the manuscript, "Bahubuddha-sutra." Please note the asterisk. Scholarly convention means that that's a reconstructed title. I didn't make it up totally. I borrowed it from a related and somewhat similar text which exists in Sanskrit as part of the Mahavastu. So it's a conjectural but pretty likely title. The actual title of the manuscript would have been on some of the part that's incomplete, that's missing. So that's why I have a hypothetical title. And I'll show you the details of that a little later. First, briefly, the big picture. This is one of several hundred manuscripts discovered within the last 20 years from the ancient region of Gandhara. And I'll show a map later if you're not familiar with Gandhara and where it is. I'll get back to that. But we now know of several hundred manuscripts, almost all of them like this one, a birch bark scroll and written in the Gandhari language, which I'll describe a little bit later on, and in the Kharosthi script, which you'll also see some illustrations of. And these manuscripts date between the first century BC and the third century AD. So they are clearly the oldest manuscripts of any manifestation of Buddhism. And they're also the oldest South Asian manuscripts in existence.

^M00:10:39

So here, you see the scroll as it was delivered to the library. The main piece is at the bottom, rolled up piece of birch bark, and the piece on top is actually would've been an adjoining piece but it had already broken off. You might notice, I don't know if you can see from where you're sitting but the two look quite different and the reason is that they're in a different handwriting. And the reason for that is that when the scroll was unrolled and examined, it turned out that one scribe, I could just call it scribe A, had written the front and then he'd handed it off to another scribe, I'll call scribe B, and the back is in a quite distinctly different writing. So that's what you're seeing here. This is from -- The top upper one is from the recto, that is the front side, and the lower one is from the verso or the back side.

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Looking at another angle on this manuscript, this is how it looked before it was unrolled and preserved, looking at it from the end and you can see pretty clearly how the scroll is rolled up and you can see how delicate and fragile this material is. If you've probably seen a piece of birch bark, you can, if nobody's looking, you can pull it off a tree and a beautiful white durable and very flexible and very nice looking material when it's new, when you pull it off the tree. When it's 2000 years old, it's extremely fragile and delicate and you can see all its little bits falling off of it no matter how careful you are. Another extra problem, I've boxed in an example of what we call delamination. So actually, birch bark consists of constituent layers. There're usually three layers that you can't see when it's fresh. You wouldn't notice. But again, when it dries out, those layers sometimes pull apart and sometimes they completely separate. That causes all kinds of problems when you're trying to reconstruct the manuscript because you not only have the manuscripts itself is broken into component parts, as you'll see, but the component parts are sometimes the front and the back are completely separated and it's not always at all obvious where and how they go together. So anyway, this is what came to the library some years ago. And the first problem is what to do with that. It has to be conserved and unrolled and here they are. This is on the left is Holly Krueger of the Library of Congress and at the right is Mark Barnard who was imported from the British Library as a special consultant because he was the most experienced person. He had unrolled two premier groups of similar types of manuscripts discovered again in the fairly recent past. So we have really an A-team conserving this difficult manuscript and here's just a detailed shot of how they do it. In a word, very carefully. Sorry. I'm going to wrong way. So here you see the implements that they use and how they are working together carefully. And this is the result or at least the preliminary result. So this is the recto side unreconstructed. In other words, that's how it actually looks and how it looks in those facsimile images in the back of the room, which you can look at later, as it came apart. Several changes had to be made. Particularly, there were these three pieces, loose pieces at the top, and you saw one of them in the first image and two others came apart.

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And the conservators had no way to know exactly where they belonged and the scroll as it was unrolled was placed on a sheet of glass and when they were finished, they put another piece of glass on to seal it and that's a permanent disposition of it. But some of these pieces are not actually in their correct position, particularly those three at the top. So I'll show you. The next image is the reconstructed version and you'll see those pieces are reversed and flipped over like that and that. So this is photoshopped. All the reconstruction is done on screen with Photoshop. The original, as you'll see it back there, remains as it was unrolled. And this is what a typical problem. We have these problems almost always with birch bark scrolls. When they get unrolled, they don't come out all nice and neat and clear.

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You'll notice in the reconstructed image the wear pattern and this is again very typical of birch bark scrolls. The best part is the bottom. So you can see clearly the farther up you go, the worse the condition gets and that's not the original top. At the top, there were some more lines missing, apparently probably not too many. So this is actually, believe it or not, one of the best preserved birch bark scrolls. A lot of them were worse than this. But there is something missing at the top and those spaces between the pieces are intentional and planned. So they represent places where the intermediate text was lost. But as I said, this is very typical. The bottom is always the best part. Why? Because when they'd finish the scroll, they would roll it up and they'd roll it up from the bottom. So when it's rolled, the bottom is on the inside and it's protected and the top is on the outside and it's most subject to wear. So it's very rare that we actually get the top of the manuscript. And that causes plenty of problems because, well, that's one of the reasons that I don't really know the name of the title of the text because in Indian books, the title is written usually at the end, not at the beginning. Seems strange to Western way of doing things but that's the typical pattern. So the title, the colophon containing the title would've been at the top of the back and that's the part that we don't have.

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This is the verso and you can see it's just the same thing turned around and you can see how they do it. They write from the top to the bottom and the flip it over the long way and write from the bottom to the top. So that means we're missing typically, in this case and typically, we're missing the beginning and the end of the text, which are parts that you most want to see when you're trying to analyze it but usually we don't have it. So we look at similar related texts. We extrapolate. We make up a title. We do the best we can. Now I've -- I don't know if it's clear. I've boxed in a portion of the top of the verso, at the top of the back side, and that's going to be shown in detail in the next slide. So I just wanted to give you a little bit of a closer look at part of it relatively well-preserved part of the text. It's not as well preserved as it looked because if you look closely, I don't know if you can see from there, but actually there are many little bits, sections of the bark that have delaminated and they're actually misplaced. So if you look closely, you'll see some of those lines are jagged and interrupted and that's delamination. So this is what I'm going to be doing tomorrow is trying to figure out where those lose bits actually correctly belong. This is -- And just an example of the text, I'll explain a little more later on. But it's talking about when the life in Buddhist cosmic time, the lifetime of the various buddhas, and also it's explaining in a kind of punning way the name of the Buddha. His name is Padmottara because he is pure like a lotus padma. So that's a typical rhetorical device. So that's about the manuscript itself. Now I'd like to give you a little bit of background on the date and chronological and historical context of the manuscript.

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So this manuscript has been tested by radiocarbon dating twice in two different labs and the results are here. And the results are a little disturbing because they should be the same, theoretically but they're not and there's been some discussion of that and probably there was some contamination. These things were packed in cotton wool when they were shipped here and that may have contaminated and damaged the accuracy of the test. So there's really no way to know which is the more accurate result, the one in Australia, number one, or the one that was done in University of Arizona, number two. So all in all, we have the big possible span from 206 BC to 1, what does it say, 133 CE. But that's not -- It's not a major problem because it's all in the ballpark and since then, quite a few other manuscripts of similar types have been tested and they all fall in period between first century BC to third century AD. And for specific reasons that I'm not going to take the time to explain now but I'm pretty sure that this manuscript is either first century BC or first century CE. So we have a pretty good idea of where we are historically. And that fits right in pretty well, quite well with what we understand of historical circumstances or historical context of this manuscript. So let's talk for a few minutes about the ancient region of Gandhara in the period in question, end of BC, beginning of CE period. So Gandhara, I've learned from speaking about this many places that some people know where Gandhara is and a lot of people don't. So I'll tell you in case you're in the later category. So this is a detailed map of Western and Northwestern India. And the area -- The rather small area circled in green, I hope you can see that at least where it is, is what we call Gandhara proper. The city, you can't read it on this map, but the modern city that that's surrounding is Peshawar in Northwestern Pakistan. So the valley, called the Peshawar Valley or the area of the Peshawar River, small area, 120 miles from east to west, is the Gandhara and region proper but there's also much bigger surrounding region I call Greater Gandhara, which is the cultural region which in the period in question that I was talking about was under the influence or within the cultural sphere of Gandhara itself. The reason that happens, the reason you get a thing called "Greater Gandhara" is in the period in question, again first century BC to second, third century AD, Gandhara was very much a political and cultural center, major political and cultural center in India and adjoining regions as well. In this period, there were a series of invasions or immigrations or movements, whatever you want to call it, by peoples from the north, from Central Asia, from the west, from Iran and from other places as well who came into this sort of what some historians call the funnel that leads immigrants and movements across Asia into India through particularly the Khyber Pass that's the most famous site in that pattern. So these immigrants came into India, set up a series of kingdoms and eventually The Great Kushan Empire in the period in question and they on one hand imposed their power but they rapidly assimilated into an Indian cultural milieu and the best and easiest way to do that is to become Buddhists because Buddhism is open to all. So what happened is that these barbarian conquerors very quickly became the great patrons of, well, generous, wealthy and generous patrons of Buddhist monasteries and institutions and that led to a great flourishing of Buddhism in Gandhara in the period in question. And this textural material we are dealing with is one manifestation of that flourishing period of Buddhism.

^M00:25:18

These foreign invaders, as they might be called, are known to us from the manuscripts but also from a very large number of physical remains, including inscriptions recording their donation. So this is just one example, a fairly typical example, from the first century of a reliquary dedicated by a member of the royal family of these Scythians or Saka, Indo-Scythian rulers of Northwestern India with a beautiful inscription around the top. And I don't know if you can see there are a few letters that are in gold. So actually originally the whole inscription was inlaid with gold wire and most of them disappeared but for some reason, two or three of the letters still have their original gold, sort of emblematic of the generosity of their patronage. So in the period that I'm talking about, Gandhara became a major center, in some senses even the major center of Buddhism in the South Asian continent and this had even greater historical consequences because we now know and it's gradually becoming clearer how Buddhism actually left the motherland of India and went into Central Asia through Gandhara. And we are now getting very clear evidence of that that Gandharan travelers went into Central Asia, brought Buddhism. And from there, Buddhism spread to China, to Korea, and Japan. So Gandhara is really a critical node, not just in Indian history, but in the entire history of Buddhism.

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The other best know manifestation of Gandharan Buddhism is in its very abundant school of sculpture and other arts. And I find that in general audiences, that's what people are aware of if they have any acquaintance of Gandhara. And Gandharan Buddhist sculpture and again just about the same period, time period that I'm talking about, first to third century AD, you can see specimens of that in most major museums anywhere in the world, including right here in Washington, DC. In the Freer Gallery, there's this very amazing set of four friezes illustrating the four major events of the Buddha's life. So if you're not familiar, I definitely recommend a trip over there. Quite worth it. So I'll just show you these as a local example.



So the first of the great events is, of course, the miraculous birth of Buddha coming out of the right side of his mother.



And this is the enlightenment Buddha in meditation and all around him are the army of Mara or the anti-Buddha attacking him, trying to scare him, trying to distract him. And of course, they can't. You have that sort of called a force field around Buddha and they're all coming at him but there is this blanket area where they can't penetrate. And at the lower left is Mara in dejection because he sees that he's losing the battle.



And then the third is the first sermon in the Deer Park in Sarnath and you can see the two deer at the bottom of the chair and that's the, the bottom of the seat, that's the emblem of this great event.



And then finally the Parinirvana, the final passing away of Buddha. So these are absolutely basic to the biography of the Buddha. But what might seem odd is that the text that I'm here to talk about, which is about the life of the buddhas, these are not mentioned at all in that text because the kind of, the biography that I'm going to be talking about is not a conventional biography, at least in modern terms. It works quite differently and I'll explain that in a few minutes.

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Part 2 of 2

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I want to add a little more background information on the nature of Buddhist canons. Buddhist canons are not like the canons of say Islam or Judaism where you have a single, clearly-defined invariable unilingual text or corpus of text. Buddhist canons are multiple. They exist in different forms, in different languages from different parts of the Buddhist world. Basically, the best known and most important Buddhist canons are in Pali Sanskrit, Chinese, and Tibetan. The Sanskrit is an incomplete canon known from fragmentary remains, mostly from Central Asia and from China. Buddhism in a way you can compare more to Christianity in terms of its approach to language and text and canon because like Christianity, Buddhism is a religious tradition that encourages translation, again in contrast to Islam and Judaism where if you read the Quran or you read the Torah, you read it in Arabic or Hebrew, respectively, because that's the essence of it. And if you translate it, it's just some pale imitation. That's not the idea in Buddhism. And the Buddha was said to have explained to his followers in a famous passage, speak, explain the dharma to people in their own language. So right from the beginning, there was the desire, preference for translation. So that's relevant to what I'm discussing here because we now have an increasingly large body, several hundred manuscripts, almost all fragmentary, in the Gandhari language, which I will explain in a moment. So I am willing to go out on a limb and say that there was a complete Gandhari canon in antiquity. It disappeared until recently. Why? Well, simply because Gandhara ceased to be a part of the Buddhist world or Buddhism died out at least 1000 years ago in Gandhara and it was completely forgotten until recently. So I would make the case that we're actually rediscovering an unknown canon of Buddhism and that's the canon that has been translated into Gandhari language. And the Gandhari language was in its day just the local vernacular language of the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent. So it's linguistically related fairly closely to Pali and Sanskrit. And so I just have a quickie comparison chart for those of you who are familiar with or interested in this sort of thing. So the same verse in Gandhari, Sanskrit and Pali and I tried to clarify it by, I picked one word, in boldface, which is the word for a man or a human being. So you can see the relationships of manocie [phonetic] in Gandhari, manuoyaci [phonetic] in Sanskrit and manusso [phonetic] in Pali and so forth. You can make what you will of that.

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The Gandhari language is always or almost always connected with the Kharosthi script, which looks something like this. Kharosthi script, which is written from right to left, although not in this example, is unlike the Gandhari language, which is of Indian origin. The Kharosthi script is of Western, that is Semitic origin derived or connected with the Aramaic script. So this is the alphabetical order or the character set of Kharosthi script but it's written in Western way, left to right. And that alphabet is called Arapacana at the top. Why Arapacana? Well, that's why just the first five letters. So as we say "alphabet," we call it alphabet just by citing the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha, beta, same principle was common in many other scripts or language groups. So that's the Arapacana alphabet. And this is a chart which shows the, illustrates the relationship between the Aramaic script and the Kharosthi script and I just circled some examples where it's relatively clear the derivation and connection with the Aramaic prototype. It's actually a complicated and controversial and interesting topic but I won't go into it here.

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So that's all more or less by way of background. Now I'll come to the main point, context and significance of the Library of Congress scroll. What's it about? Well, I call the "Many Buddhas Sutra." I would describe it as a combined comparative biographical summary of the lives of 15 Buddhas beginning with Dipankara, who lived many billions of years ago, and ending with Sakyamuni or Siddharta or "our Buddha" as he's sometimes called. And then going on one more to Maitreya or Ajita who is the next Buddha. So those 14 Buddhas in the past and one Buddha in the future. So these are the 15 Buddhas involved. Start with Dipankara. Number 14 is Sakyamuni who actually is Sakyamuni the second, surprisingly. And then on to Maitreya in the future. But this biography is not the kind of biography that you saw in those four sculpted images that I showed you before. In fact, those four great events, the four prime events of the Buddha's life are not mentioned at all in this strange kind of biography. So what it is about? Well, I've summarized that in this chart. There are seven points of information which are enumerated for each of the Buddhas. So it starts out with the predictions. I'll explain the significance of that a little bit later. And the predictions made by each of the 15 Buddhas and so forth. So for example number three, I'll show later. The lifespan tells you how long each Buddha lasted. So it's not a narrative presentation. It's a summary of information. And that has its own significance, an importance, which I'll try to clarify as I go through. So the next slide I'm going to show you the specific, the full information, I've picked item five, social class, the varna it's called in Sanskrit, which of the four classes of society each of the Buddhas and I picked that, I showed that one because it's short and I can fit it all in one slide So if we read, Dipankara went forth, that means, you know, became a Buddha approximately from a brahman family, Sarvabhibhu from ksatriya family. Padmottara was a brahman. Atyuccagamin was ksatriya, on and on and on. Maybe not the most exciting reading to the un-initiated. This is the part that I don't show my undergraduate students. You can imagine their eyes glazing over. But it has considerable interest and significance. I'm not going to go into this example here although it implies something about the social views of ancient Buddhism. But I want to show another one. This is another category, category three and the seven points of information, which is the lifespans of the Buddha. And I couldn't fit in all 15 Buddhas, so I just give approximately the last half. And here, you'll see a clear progression. Vipasyin Buddha number eight lived for 80,000 years, Buddha number nine 70,000 years, et cetera, et cetera, down to number 13, who is Kasyapa the immediate predecessor of the historical Buddha Sakyamuni. He lived for 20,000 years. And I -- And this is Sakyamuni. By the way, this whole text is, of course, being recited, told by Sakyamuni. He predicts that he will live only 80 years. So you see it's very, it's a pronounced drastic downward progression in the lifetime of the Buddhas.

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And this is a matter of concern because a year in the life of the Buddha or a day or an hour in the life of a Buddha is a very precious thing. So it gives you a sense of the world getting somehow deteriorating. Well, the world is always deteriorating and so it always seems. But when you look at the next item, which is category four, the periods, the historic periods in which the Buddhas lived, you actually get a different message or a different picture. So here, we have -- I was able to fit all 15 on. So this is the historical progression, the sweep of history when these earlier Buddhas lived and when the future Buddhas will live. So Dipankara, which is actually the same as Dipankara, lived in an uncountable eon before the present eon. I'll try to explain briefly Buddhist cosmology. It's a little different than what you might be used to. An uncountable eon is a technical term. It doesn't mean you can't count it. It means it's so huge. So an uncountable eon is, I believe, the best calculation I've been able to find is 10 to the 154th power number of years. So virtually uncountable. The next Buddha, Sarvabhibhu, 10 million eons, the third 100,000 and so forth, 1000, 500. So you see a different kind of progression. You see for instance in number nine and ten, you have two buddhas, Sikhin and Visvabhu, who lived in the same eon and then the 11th through 15th are all in the same eon and that's the eon that we're living in now. And that's called the bhadrakalpa because Bhadra means good, happy, fortunate, because it's the era in which many buddhas are living. So you get -- There's a kind of balance between the decrease in the lifetime of the buddhas, in the lifespan of the buddhas but they're getting more frequent in history.

^M00:42:23
^M00:42:27

There's another related text which contains these lists of buddhas and their times and their characteristics. It's called the Bhadrakalpikasutra. Some of you might be familiar with it. And Bhadrakalpika means it talks about the bhadrakalpa, kalpa means eon. And it's a list of buddhas but not from the past but looking ahead in the future. So it actually starts with the first Buddha in the bhadrakalpa that is Kakusandha and goes through Sakyamuni, our Buddha, and Maitreya and then 996 more buddhas are still to come within this Bhadra era. So this is very important for Buddhist practice or philosophy or soteriology because the point is to give encouragement and comfort that Buddhas will although we have missed the Buddha, we living now, we're not during the lifetime of the Buddha but there will be buddhas to come and in future years if we pursue the Buddhist path, we might get the blessing of actually some day a million years form now or a billion years from now actually see and be the presence of the Buddha. So there's a balance of the downward trajectory of the world in general but the increasing promise of increasing numbers of buddhas. Let me turn to my next topic which is how many buddhas are there. So at this point, you might be wondering the text that I'm primarily concerned with contains 15 buddhas. I mentioned another one that enumerates 1001 buddhas and there are many other numbers. There's a famous early sutra, the [inaudible] sutra, which has seven buddhas which seems to be the original number. There's another polytext called Buddhavamsa which lists 25 buddhas. And significantly in that case, it lists 25 buddhas but it begins with Dipankara and that's particularly an important moment within the history of the buddhas plural, Dipankara has a special importance which I will explain in a few minutes. Just I'll mention one other number, the Mahavastu which is a Sanskrit biography of the Buddha, also has a list of buddhas. It has a long list, 331,140,263 buddhas from the remote inconceivable past down to the present time of Sakyamuni.

^M00:45:23

So how many buddhas are there? Well, let me come back to the point about Dipankara. Why is Dipankara special in these lists? Why do -- Why is he stressed in most of them and in at least two important cases, including our manuscript, it begins with him? Well, because he's the Buddha who produced our Buddha Sakyamuni. And by produced, I will try to say he inspired the person who would eventually be reborn as the Buddha. He inspired him to become a Buddha and he actually predicted that that being would become a Buddha. So let me explain. I'll show how that happened.


1. Dipankara
2. Sarvabhibhu
3. Padmottara
4. Atyuccagamin
5. Yasottara
6. Sakyamuni 1
7. Tisya
8. Vipasyin
9. Sikhin
10. Visvabhu
11. Krakucchanda
12. Konakamuni
13. Kasyapa
14. Sakyamuni 2
15. Maitreya

Here, I've just given you the basic list but I've emphasized Dipankara and Sakyamuni because they have this special connection.



And this is the famous scene where it all started. This is where a young man, a very handsome young man named Megha or Sumedha, different names, in extremely remote past, in the time of Dipankara, was walking down the street and he saw the Buddha Dipankara. And he was overcome with power and radiance of the Buddha. And the Buddha was walking along the road and maybe it was like today, the road was wet and muddy and he didn't want the Buddha to get his feet dirty. So he undid his -- He had this beautiful long thick hair and he threw it over the road for the Buddha to walk on, to keep his feet dry. And the Buddha seeing that said, knew that this man Megha was special and had a special destiny and predicted that he would in the future become a Buddha and Megha was inspired to pursue the path. And eventually after millions and millions of lifetimes, he in fact became the Buddha and that's what we see here in this Gandharan sculpture. So the point is where do buddhas come from and how many are there? The answer is buddhas come from other buddhas. A buddha predicts and produces, inspires the attainment of Buddhahood by another person or by other people in the long future.

So how many buddhas are there? I finally come back to the question. Infinite number. Why infinite? Because time is infinite in the Buddhas conception both in the past and the future. There is no beginning. There is no end. And throughout history, buddhas are either present or most of the time in the process of forming at some time. And that's why the Mahavastu can say in all seriousness that there are 331 million et cetera buddhas. There're actually much more than that. There are an infinite number. But these different texts or these different presentations, usually by the Buddha himself, simply address the issue or explain the issue in a limited scope because you can't, well the Buddha can talk about, understand eternity but we can't. So it takes -- These different texts are really slices of history, slices of Buddha history, which is infinite from beginning to end. Some of them talk about the recent past. Some of them talk about a little farther in the past. Some go into the future. Some are concerned mainly with the future. But they're all just pieces of the big picture. I call them slices of history.

^M00:49:18
^M00:49:22

Let me turn to my penultimate topic, which is to step back and try to give you some idea of the importance of this text and the position of this text within Buddhist literature more broadly. I think I've already -- Excuse me. I hope I've already made it clear that this text is new. It's text we've never seen before but it's by no means totally unprecedented. We have similar texts or texts of similar theme in other parts of the Buddhist literature and that's why I borrowed the title "Many Buddha Sutra," Bahubuddha-sutra, from another Sanskrit book that has a similar portion. And that's interesting, now I'm speaking in terms of the history of Buddhist literature, what this is showing us. We find similar descriptions of the buddhas in other Buddhist literature. It's Sanskrit, Pali, Chinese. But they're usually incorporated into much bigger text like the Mahavastu or the [inaudible], these enormous multivolume texts. What we have here are we are finding the actual component parts of some of those massive texts. So it's beginning to become clearer that there was a process, for lack of better term I call it the clumping process, in the history of Buddhist literature that individual, what were originally individual texts have tended to get squished together into these sort of encyclopedic long works. There are other texts which are more or less familiar. We have for instance Gandhari versions of texts that were known in essentially a similar form in other languages, usual Pali, Sanskrit, Chinese or combinations thereof. So these are not new texts but they are new versions of previously known texts. So it's less spectacular but to the specialists, it's extremely interesting because you can do all sorts of textual comparisons of the details and relationships. So, you know, to us, it's exciting as if someone discovered the putative Aramaic original form of the Gospels, New Testament Gospels known only in Greek. So that's a big deal for us. And then there's a third class of material in this Gandhari literature which I haven't talked about and I don't have time to introduce but I just wanted to say there are texts which are completely new for which we have no parallel or no approximately similar material in any of the other several Buddhist literatures and these are great eyeopeners. They give us views, new dimensions of Buddhist doctrine and Buddhist literature that we had no idea of in many cases. So what do we have, couple hundred scraps of partial texts which are clearly part of what was originally a much larger literature. I think Gandhari Buddhist literature in its day, there must've been thousands of different texts in existence. So it's very much tip of the iceberg situation but, you know, you can look at the tip and if you look closely enough, you can sort of extrapolate the picture of the whole iceberg. I have a larger vision or fantasy of original Indian Buddhism as an ocean with many icebergs, each representing the local textual traditions or the local canons of the different parts of the Indian world. Those icebergs are mostly gone. They've melted away. We have a few of them. We have the Pali canon. We have the partial Sanskrit canon. But I have the feeling now that there were many local canons. All had a common core. I don't mean to give the idea they're completely different. They had a common core but they had many different texts in and around that basic commonality. Those other Buddhist literatures or canons most of them are gone and I would say there's no hope of finding them mainly for a simple physical reason, the climate of India, of India proper is such that organic materials, manuscripts never last for more than a few hundred years. There are really no really old manuscripts in India proper. You only get the ancient manuscripts from the borderlands of India, in this case Gandhara which has a more moderate climate and more conducive to the survival of organic materials of manuscripts.

The climate of Theravada countries is not conducive to the survival of manuscripts. Apart from brief quotations in inscriptions and a two-page fragment from the eighth or ninth century found in Nepal, the oldest known manuscripts are from late in the fifteenth century, and there is not very much from before the eighteenth.

-- Tripitaka, by New world Encyclopedia

So extrapolating and I'm going out on a limb a little bit. From the tip of the Gandharan iceberg, I try to see the shape of the whole iceberg and from that I try to guess the shape of all the other icebergs that theoretically existed and never will. But the details of this are gradually become clearer as we, myself and my colleagues and collaborators in this Gandharan enterprise, work through the materials we have and that's why I'm here.

^M00:55:33

So I just want to conclude with a few words on specifically on what I and my colleagues are doing with these manuscripts. Jonathan mentioned already in his introduction that I have published a translation, really it's a kind of preliminary translation, of this text and it's in my book "Buddhist Literature of Ancient Gandhara," which is on the table and actually obviously open to the appropriate pages where I translate this whole thing. But that's actually just the beginning. The translation with this sort of material, this sort of work, translation is not the main part. So what I'm working on and why I'm here, other than of course to speak to you, but to do some of the detailed work towards the production of a complete scholarly detailed philological edition, that more for the specialists. So that will eventually take the form of one of those black books that you see on the table there. That's a series called "Gandharan Buddhist Text." So that's the academic presentation of this material. My other book is meant more for the general readership. So one of these years, I don't dare be more specific on that, I do commit myself that there will be a black book in the Gandharan Buddhist text on this manuscript and hopefully tomorrow I'll begin making some progress towards that. But for the meantime, you can feel free to consult my translation and this is the book in question. This one already actually exists. So thank you for your attention. Be glad to answer questions.

^M00:57:38
[ Applause ]
^M00:57:44

>> Jonathan Loar: So we'll open it up to questions if anybody has any.

^M00:57:49
^M00:57:54

>> Richard Solomon: Please. Yes.

>> I have a question. Could you just say something about how the manuscripts, I mean how we get manuscripts, how [inaudible] manuscripts?

>> Richard Solomon: Yes, that's a little bit complicated. The problem is that in nearly all cases we don't really know where the manuscripts come from and that's why I didn't talk about that. Almost all of the manuscripts of this type have come up through private collections or antiquities market and that is frankly a murky place. The people who have possession of them may or may not know where they actually came from and they may or may not tell you or may or may not tell you the truth. But what we do know fairly certainly is that some, probably most, maybe all of them were originally in clay pots and we actually have not here but in the British Library we actually have one of the clay pots in which they came. And these pots were buried probably under stupas or near stupas in a monastery. So they put the manuscripts in the pots, sealed it up with a kind of, I think probably with beeswax, put a lid on it and sealed it, and they buried it in the stupa. At least some of those came from Hadda, in Afghanistan if you're familiar with that. They all come -- They probably -- All of most of them come from eastern Afghanistan, maybe from some northwestern Pakistan. And so that's -- Unfortunately, that's all we really know. There are no cases where we have any of these manuscripts and know specifically definitely exactly where they came from but we have some general knowledge about the provenance.

^M01:00:10

It's a problem. Yes, please.

^M01:00:18
[ Inaudible Audience Question ]
^M01:00:49

Yes. You may be referring to in Buddhist literature they, in [inaudible], they talk about Taxila, which was the great city of that area, and they call it the university but that's actually kind of an anachronism and that's something that modern scholars, modern translators have used that term but really it was just kind of center of learning but not in a formal sense of a university. But in terms of propagation, well we don't know very much about that but there's one very important point that we do know and that concerns what I mentioned briefly before, the transmission of this material, I mean Buddhist literature in general, into Central Asia and into China. So there's something called the Gandhari hypothesis which I didn't talk about but I will for a minute because it's relevant to your question. This is something that actually goes back to I think the 1930s. It was first noticed that if you look at some types of Chinese Buddhist texts and, of course, Chinese Buddhist texts are, the [inaudible] are all translated from Indian originals. And this was a huge enterprise that went on from the second century BC for, I'm sorry, second century AD for a thousand years. It was this enormous project of translating the Buddhist scriptures into Chinese. It's actually the biggest and most impressive translation project in the history of the world. I'll go out on a limb and say that. Very few people outside Buddha circles know that but it's a major achievement in world civilization I would say. Now concerning that, there was this idea called the Gandhari hypothesis and what happened is that certain text scholars, philologists were looking at the early Chinese translations, second, third, maybe fourth century, and looking at how they rendered the Indian names. And this was a problem because Indian names and Chinese names are extremely different in the structure of the language and the sound system are so different and the writing system, everything is different, so they struggled with representing Buddhist Indian names in Chinese but some of these early scholars noted that there were maybe oddities in the way that the names were presented which made them question what had been assumed, which it was assumed that the Chinese translations were made from Sanskrit but certain of the features of the names actually didn't line up with Sanskrit but they do line up with the corresponding Gandhari pronunciations, like that slide I showed you where you'd see the different sound systems. So the Gandhari hypothesis then was that the Chinese Buddhist texts, not all of them but the early phase, were actually based not on Sanskrit originals but on Gandhari originals. And one of the question marks about that theory was at the time and for decades afterwards there were no Gandhari text. Now to make a long story short, there are and so this new material definitely supports, I would say proves the Gandhari hypothesis. So that's really, coming back to your question, the propagation, the historically important propagation is that these were brought by various people into China and translated. They probably wasn't propagated in India proper because in India proper, the other regions had their own corresponding sets of texts in their own local languages and dialects.

^M01:05:09

I hope I answered your question. Yes, please.

>> Thank you very much for the wonderful [inaudible] research. Do you know the approximate dimensions of the original scrolls?

>> Richard Solomon: Oh, I didn't mention that. Is the facsimile their actual size?

>> Jonathan Loar: Close.

>> Richard Solomon: Yes. In the back, you can look at it afterwards. About that long. Does that seem right? So the original would've been somewhat longer. The dimensions of these scrolls vary a lot. This is one of the shorter ones. Ah, yes. Thank you. That long. This was probably, as far as I see, it was made from a single piece of birch bark. But, of course, you're limited by the size of -- So there are -- We have some much longer scrolls, some that are several yards long but, of course, they're put together. We call them composite scrolls. They're sheets of bark, you know, typically not longer than this but there might be 10 or 15 or even more put together. I'm having some doubts because there's a, you can't see it from there, but there's a blank strip here and I wonder whether that's actually a juncture and whether this was made, put together from two separate pieces. So that's -- I'm going to be checking that tomorrow. The range, very wide range. There are some -- The smallest ones are about this high. The longest ones are yards and yards long.

^M01:06:52
^M01:06:56

Yes, please.

^M01:06:58
[ Inaudible Audience Question ]
^M01:07:05

I'm sorry. I'm not hearing.

^M01:07:09
[ Inaudible Audience Question ]
^M01:07:14

Oh, yes. That's -- I've wondered about that. I'm not sure I understand it. In the list of 15, there's Sakyamuni the first and of course it doesn't say the first. I just put together those numbers. He was number eight. I don't know. I'm not sure. And then Sakyamuni the second. But there's another point about that which I didn't mention. I talked about that list in the Mahavastu of 331,140,263 buddhas. What I didn't say is that out of the 300 million, out of the 331, 300 million were named Sakyamuni. And according to that text, there was a stretch of 30 million buddhas in a row that were all had the same name. And I have thought about and failed to understand what that, why that is and what that means. But there is -- You know, buddhas are and by impression, they're more or less the same and their images, I don't think I have one here, but you see in Gandhari and other sculptures, you see sets of buddhas like the seven buddhas or sometimes eight buddhas and they're all almost exactly the same. So there seems to be a range of possibilities that buddhas are always similar and they can be very similar and sometimes they are absolutely identical. But I'm still pondering that. It is hard to understand that.

^M01:08:59
^M01:09:05

Yes, sir?

^M01:09:07
[ Inaudible Audience Question ]
^M01:09:27

Yes. It's hard to give exact numbers. Let me explain the problem. There are groups of manuscripts. There are six or seven major groups. And typically, one of these groups will typically have, take two or three dozen manuscripts but there's one group which comes from a place called Bamiyan, which people have heard of because they were, everybody knows they were giant buddhas and the Taliban blew them up in 1999 or whenever it was. What the public general doesn't know is that they were also thousands and thousands of manuscripts found there. And most of those manuscripts were later manuscripts in Sanskrit but there's an early phase of Gandhari manuscripts similar to what I've been talking about. Now that contains -- That consists of 300 or so fragments and most of them are -- When I say fragments, I mean like this. So it's very hard to say, okay, what is that? Is that 300 manuscripts or are they part and how many manuscripts were they actually parts of and in most cases they're so small that's it's hard to be sure. So there might be 300 fragments but there might've been 50 or 60 manuscripts at a little more than a guess. So that's why the numbers are very fuzzy and that's why I've been a little bit vague. But I would say we have -- Well, I said 200 -- We have partial remnants of at least 200 manuscripts and we have possibly more than that. In terms of complete manuscripts or texts that are complete or more or less complete, you know, say 90%, very few, maybe three or four. This thing, I think I actually calculated, I don't remember. We have maybe 75 to 80% of the original of this and that's much, much better than usual. So it's a little hard to say exactly how much we have but we do have a lot of material, enough to really begin to get a glimpse of the big picture. Yes, please.

^M01:12:08
[ Inaudible Audience Question ]
^M01:12:23

The answer is almost all are Buddhist texts, not necessarily sutras but Buddhist texts of any kind clearly Buddhist content. Sorry, I broke your microphone. There are two exceptions in all of these 200 or whatever manuscripts, there are two exceptions but they're really interesting. One of them is a kind of legal document. The other, which was just discovered very recently and is about to be published by my colleague Mark Allen [assumed spelling], you might know who he is. And it's actually just little fragments of what would've been a very interesting text but it's enough to see what's going on. It's actually a record of the monastery's record of donations. And not only that, it lists the names of the donors and the primary donor was [inaudible], who's a well-known figure in Indian history of around 100 AD. So this is really a great thing for us because it clarifies and confirms the historical context within that period that I talked about, that so-called foreign ruler period, and he was previously known but [inaudible] his relationship to Buddhism was not clear and now we have it. He was mentioned several times in this text. So it's not a Buddhist text in the sense that the others are but it's monastic business and it's a real eyeopener. And this is going to be published in a few months. So really change the picture. But that's all we have so far of that type.

>> Jonathan Loar: I think we have time for maybe one more question. Are there any burning questions? Otherwise, we'll be here around the reading room for [inaudible] afterwards but I feel incredibly fortunate to be learning so much about the scroll. Thank you so much, Dr. Solomon.

>> Richard Solomon: My pleasure. Thank you.

^M01:14:52
[ Applause ]
^M01:14:57

And thanks again to everybody for braving the rain and wind.

[admin]

Bhadrakalpika Sūtra
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/15/21


Garden of One Thousand Buddhas Arlee, Montana

Bhadrakalpikasūtra (Sanskrit; Wylie: bskal pa bzang po’i mdo) is a Mahayana sutra with 24 chapters written in c. 200-250 CE,[1] said to have been taught by Gautama Buddha in Vaishali.[2] It includes the names of the 1002 Buddhas of this "Fortunate Aeon."[3] The title of this text means the Fortunate Aeon Sūtra.

In 2017, United States Representative, Colleen Hanabusa, was sworn in on a copy of the Fortune Aeon.[4]

The thousand buddhas


Photo showing Dunhuang Cave 16 and the manuscripts piled up for Aurel Stein near the entrance to Cave 17, the “library cave” at the Mogao Caves


Temple of One Thousand Buddhas, in la Boulaye, Saône-et-Loire, Burgundy

The list of 1002 (or 1004) names starts with:[5]

• Krakucchanda
• Kanakamuni
• Kashyapa
• Shakyamuni
• Maitreya

... and ends with ...[6]

• Harivaktra
• Chuda and
• Rocha

It is included in the first volume of the sutra section of the Kangyur of Tibetan Buddhism. It is also available in Chinese, Tibetan, Mongolian, and other languages in variants that differ slightly as to the number of Tathāgatas enumerated. For example, the Khotanese version is the proponent of a 1005-Tathāgata system.[7]

Dharmarakṣa, a native of Dunhuang, between third and fourth centuries had translated the Bhadrakalpikasutra into Classical Chinese. Note that "A cave of the Thousand-Buddhas" is the name of the world-renowned grottoes at Dunhuang. Vidyakarasimha and Dpal-dbyans translated the text into Tibetan.[8]

Dunhuang is a county-level city in Northwestern Gansu Province, Western China... Dunhuang was a major stop on the ancient Silk Road and is best known for the nearby Mogao Caves.

Figure of Maitreya Buddha in cave 275 from Northern Liang (397–439), one of the earliest caves. The crossed ankle figure with a three-disk crown shows influence from Kushan art.

The Mogao Caves, also known as the Thousand Buddha Grottoes or Caves of the Thousand Buddhas, form a system of 500 temples 25 km (16 mi) southeast of the center of Dunhuang, an oasis located at a religious and cultural crossroads on the Silk Road, in Gansu province, China. The caves may also be known as the Dunhuang Caves; however, this term is also used as a collective term to include other Buddhist cave sites in and around the Dunhuang area, such as the Western Thousand Buddha Caves, Eastern Thousand Buddha Caves, Yulin Caves, and Five Temple Caves. The caves contain some of the finest examples of Buddhist art spanning a period of 1,000 years. The first caves were dug out in AD 366 as places of Buddhist meditation and worship. The Mogao Caves are the best known of the Chinese Buddhist grottoes and, along with Longmen Grottoes and Yungang Grottoes, are one of the three famous ancient Buddhist sculptural sites of China.

An important cache of documents was discovered in 1900 in the so-called "Library Cave", which had been walled-up in the 11th century. The contents of the library were subsequently dispersed around the world, and the largest collections are now found in Beijing, London, Paris and Berlin, and the International Dunhuang Project exists to coordinate and collect scholarly work on the Dunhuang manuscripts and other material. The caves themselves are now a popular tourist destination, with a number open for visiting.

-- Mogao Caves, by Wikipedia

It has also been known at times as Shazhou and, in Uyghur, Dukhan.

Dunhuang is situated in an oasis containing Crescent Lake and Mingsha Shan (鳴沙山, meaning "Singing-Sand Mountain"), named after the sound of the wind whipping off the dunes, the singing sand phenomenon. Dunhuang commands a strategic position at the crossroads of the ancient Southern Silk Route and the main road leading from India via Lhasa to Mongolia and Southern Siberia, and also controls the entrance to the narrow Hexi Corridor, which leads straight to the heart of the north Chinese plains and the ancient capitals of Chang'an (today known as Xi'an) and Luoyang.

-- Dunhuang, by Wikipedia

The original Sanskrit text is now lost.

See also

• Mahayana sutras
• Heart Sutra
• Samantabhadra Meditation Sutra

Notes

1. The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, By Robert E. Buswell Jr., Donald S. Lopez Jr., Princeton University Press, 2013 p. 106
2. The Fortunate Aeon: How the Thousand Buddhas Became Enlightened (Tibetan Translation Series), 4 volume set (Berkeley: Dharma Publishing, 1986).
3. “One Thousand Buddhas from Gandhara: the Bhadrakalpikasutra and its place in Gandhari literature,” Stefan Baums, 44th Annual South Asian Conference of the Pacific Northwest, March 4–6, 2010.
4. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-amer ... ss-n699676
5. The Fortunate Aeon: How the Thousand Buddhas Became Enlightened, p. 1733
6. The Fortunate Aeon: How the Thousand Buddhas Became Enlightened, p. 1733
7. BHADRAKALPIKASŪTRA, Ronald E. Emmerick, Encyclopaedia Iranica, December 15, 1989, Vol. IV, Fasc. 2, pp. 190-191 http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/b ... anist-text
8. Dr. Shailendra K. Verma, "Emergence and Evolution of the Buddha Image (From its inception to 8th century A.D.)" a doctoral thesis. At http://www.exoticindiaart.com/product/TK70/

External links

• [Tripiṭaka. Sūtrapiṭaka. Bhadrakalpikasūtra. http://beta.worldcat.org/archivegrid/co ... /840923226]
• Tabo skor lam: inner walls On the inner walls of the ambulatory the sequence of the Buddhas of the Bhadrakalpikasūtra continues Tabo Monastery