- BEGINNINGS: THE PALI SUTTAS
- Sámanera Bodhesako
In the entire
Vana Samyutta (IX (i,197-205)) we find no mention of the Buddha. And all but one of these
fourteen discourses take place in Kosala. The monks living in the woods (vana) of
Kosala apparently managed to get their own local tradition, much involved with deities,
included in the Canon. So apparently did the followers of Venerable Sáriputta, for
although elsewhere in the Nikáyas he is found frequently in discussion with the Buddha,
in the Sáriputta Samyutta (XXVIII (iii,235-40)) none of the ten discourses make mention
of the Teacher; nine of them take place in Sávatthí. Similarly the four consecutive
Samyuttas (XXXVIII-XLI) named after, respectively, the wanderers Jambukhádaka and
Sámandaka, each containing sixteen conversations with Venerable Sáriputta, the first set
entirely in Magadha, the second among the Vajjians; Venerable Mahá Moggallána, eleven
discourses, all set in Sávatthí, and the lay disciple Citta, ten discourses, all set at
Macchikasanda, are apparently later additions to the Samyutta Nikáya of discourses
already in existence when the First Council met, but not compiled by them. It should be
noted that the Suttas concerned with Citta clearly reveal attitudes of lay devotees rather
than of monks.
And there are further examples in
both the Samyutta and Anguttara Nikáyas; but we need not investigate them, for we can see
by now that the method whereby any new material could be inserted into the collections had
to involve a consensus as to its suitability and also to include in each case a
"warning label" -- "Venerable So-and-so was dwelling at..." -- that
the discourse is not part of the original compilation. There are about 200 such
discourses, filling roughly 350 pages of print, which is about six per cent of the total.
And by the same evidence we can know
that neither was any material lost nor were any of the Suttas arbitrarily altered. For
exactly the same mechanism that required consensus in order to add to the Canon would have
come into force had any attempt been made to alter a text. And we can well imagine the
difficulty, the virtual impossibility from the very outset, of such a consensus being
achieved in order to alter what had been laid down by those very monks who were venerated
as the founders of the various lineages (see S. XIV,15 (ii,155-7)).
In order for any Sutta or part of a
Sutta to have been lost, we should have to suppose either a collective amnesia among all
the monks of all the companies who were reciters of that Sutta -- hundreds, or more
probably thousands of ambulatory amnesiacs! -- or else the breaking up and disappearance
of every single company responsible for a certain portion of the Suttas -- and this in a
time when all the evidence indicates that the Order was thriving and growing -- together
with the refusal or inability of any single monk (or ex-monk) from any of those lost
companies to come forward to teach the texts to the surviving groups. A most improbable
combination of events! No, the evidence shows clearly that there were additions to the
texts, but to suppose either substantial changes or losses is contrary to reason.
It must be emphasized primarily for
the benefit of scholarly readers that we did not begin by assuming that Suttas which do
not refer to the Buddha in their introductory material are therefore later additions to
the Canon. Rather, we first discovered a few Suttas that certainly describe events that
had taken place after the Buddha's decease. Examining them, we noticed that they possessed
one feature in common and in distinction to the great majority of discourses. We then
looked at other texts which also displayed this feature and found therein further grounds
to accept that those texts, too, were probably later additions to the Canon. We described
in detail the evidence found in several of these texts and indicated in brief other Suttas
providing additional evidence; but we do not propose to present the data to be found in a
number of other texts, for to do so would require a very long and technical and
uninteresting digression. We will note only that this evidence consists of a large number
of small, and a few not-so-small, points, all tending in the same direction, with no cases
of an opposite tendency.[35]
For how long did this process of slow
accretion continue? We can be quite certain that by the time of the Second Council which
met a century after the Buddha's decease, the process had already ended, the four Nikáyas
being regarded as closed, and that this view was ratified and finalized by that Council.
The evidence:
All additional Suttas involve
"first generation" monks, i.e. contemporaries of the Buddha but who, in some
cases, outlived the Teacher.[36] The only instance which can
reasonably be considered an exception is that of Venerable Nárada, whose talk with King
Munda -- Ajátasattu's great-grandson, according to later accounts -- is recorded at
A. V,50 (iii,57-62). However, even in this case we have a discourse at S. XII,68
(ii,115-8) -- clearly earlier than the Anguttara Sutta, for there he is said to be already
a worthy one (arahat), i.e. fully liberated, whereas here he is self-described as
not yet arahat, still a sekha -- where Venerable Ánanda also has a part. So
if Venerable Nárada was not contemporaneous with the Buddha, he was at least not far from
it. Venerable Nárada's discourse to King Munda is, as we have it, identical to a
discourse to the monks spoken by the Buddha: A. V,48 (iii,54-56).
Later sources tell us that it was
during the time of Kálasoka, the third Magadhese king after Munda, that the Second
Council convened. The Vinaya's description of this Council is much more detailed than, and
about twice the length of, its report on the First Council. The impetus for the meeting
was the exposure and condemnation of certain relaxations of monastic discipline which had
arisen among a company of monks centred in Vesálí, the famous "ten points",
the most important of which concerned a relaxation of the prohibition against
"accepting, using, or consenting to the deposit of money". We are told of the
politicking that went on before the Council met, and we are introduced to the main players
in that drama, the leading monks of the day. Not one of these eight monks nor any of the
lesser monks mentioned is known to the four Nikáyas. If the four Nikáyas had been then
regarded as open to additional material, surely we would expect to find these monks
represented.[37]
What happened is clear: however
highly these monks might have been regarded individually, for of course some of them would
have achieved full purification, those monks who were not contemporaries of the Buddha
could never achieve the distinction of those who had known him personally. Later monks
belonged, inevitably, to a particular lineage which (like caste) could not be transcended.
Only the founding elders, those who had established the lineages, could be regarded as
beyond those lines. If the doings and sayings of these second generation monks were
admitted to the Nikáyas, where would it end? The decision that needed to be reached if
the Nikáyas were to survive at all was that with the passing of the first generation the
collections had to be closed. Had they been left open they would have become
amorphous and protean -- not to be confused with "rich and varied"! -- and would
have lost their very purpose. Therefore whatever pressures may have developed to
incorporate this or that "second generation" discourse needed to be opposed and
obviously were.
The Fifth Nikáya
The material which was admitted to
the Four Nikáyas during the first century after the Buddha was but a fraction of what was
remembered. Much of this material, which included a great deal of verse,[38] must have been in common circulation, the preserve of no single
lineage or group of companies; for within the four Nikáyas and
also within the Vinaya we find not only one Sutta referring to another[39] but also, here and there, Suttas referring to material which lies
outside the first four Nikáyas.[40] There was also new
material being generated to fulfil new needs as with the Páyási Sutta on rebirth, or to
describe new events as with Ven. Nárada's talk to King Munda. What was to be done with
all of this? To add substantially to the Nikáyas would have established an unfortunate
precedent leading to the inevitable dissipation of their integrity; yet to leave the
material disorganized would be to abandon much that was worthy to an early destruction.
The solution chosen was the creation of the fifth collection, the Khuddaka Nikáya.
Khuddaka means
"small" and at first the Khuddaka Nikáya was indeed small. Today, with fifteen
separate sections, it is the most voluminous of the Nikáyas, but originally it consisted
of probably six or seven separate short texts, each of which had been compiled and
preserved, prior to inclusion in the Nikáya, individually on its own merits.
The Theragáthá and Therígáthá,
for instance, consist of the verses of various monks and nuns, respectively. Here there
can be no doubt that some of the verses are by second generation disciples (e.g. Venerable
Párápariya's verses, 920-948), and that the texts grew substantially after the First
Council. This is only to be expected: the two collections do not pretend otherwise. The
Dhammapada is a collection of popular verses. Quite a few are to be found elsewhere among
the Suttas, but as many or more are unique to this compilation. Most of the verses stand
alone, unconnected to the others. We have no direct evidence as to the date of its
closure, but the arrangement and distribution of the verses suggest that it could well
have grown during the first century. The Sutta Nipáta is, like the Dhammapada, a
collection of popular verse, but it differs in that its verses form longer poems, each of
which is regarded as a discourse. Indeed, some of them have prose attached, as a sort of
introductory bunting. A few of the poems appear within the four Nikáyas; the remainder
are the most popular of those longer poems that are not included therein. As such, a
number of its passages are quoted within the four Nikáyas (as noted above),
which has given rise to the mistaken view that the Sutta Nipáta contains the "oldest
layer" of texts. Certainly some of the Sutta Nipáta texts are contemporaneous with
the first four Nikáyas, but they do not pre-date them.[41]
The Udána is a collection of eighty
solemn utterances spoken by the Buddha on special occasions. The Itivuttaka contains 112
short Suttas, each accompanied by verses, the relevance of which is not always apparent.
This fact together with some seeming textual corruptions suggest that it may have had an
older and independent life before being incorporated into the Khuddaka Nikáya. If this is
so, it indicates what happened to those texts that did not receive the formal protection
of organization.
"The Játaka contains only the verses connected with
the 547 tales of previous existences of the Buddha. The (prose) tales are in a commentary
of the fifth century A.D., which claims to be translated from Sinhalese (to Pali)....
Professor T. W. Rhys Davids has stated that these tales are 'old stories, fairy
tales, and fables, the most important collection of ancient folklore extant,' which we are
not able to deny."[42]
Since the Játaka verses are often incomprehensible
without the prose commentary, it is difficult to see how they could predate the prose. The
prose, however, would predate the fifth century commentary into which it was translated
and collected. The origin of these verses, then, remains indeterminate. It is sometimes
thought that since these three texts -- Udána, Itivuttaka, Játaka -- are mentioned as
part of the ninefold description of texts (see above)
that they must be, like the Sutta Nipáta, part of "the oldest layer" of texts
that we now have; but it is more reasonable to suggest that they were so named because the
ninefold description was already in existence.
The other eight texts that are today
included within the Khuddaka Nikáya are generally regarded as late additions, and need
not be discussed.
The formation of this collection
probably arose during the century between the two Councils rather than with the Second
Council itself: such developments need time to generate strength and achieve general
acceptance. By the time the Council assembled, the force of opinion would have already
been in favour of including this new collection in the Canon: the Council's function
herein would have been to ratify and reinforce this consensus and, no doubt, to decide
upon its organizational details. They would also have had a hand in deciding final
organisational details for the other Nikáyas and for the Vinaya. It was possibly at this
time, for example, that D. 16 -- see Preface, paragraph six
-- was expanded to its present form, or at least a previous expansion was at this time
ratified, by including passages taken from the other parts of the Nikáyas. And, too,
those few texts, the "six percent" which had been added to their collections by
the various bhánakas, would have been cast now into their final forms.[43]
It needed to be done, for the monks
of the Vesálí company, along with their supporters, seem (according to a non-Canonical
text, the Dípavamsa, vv. 32ff.) to have refused to accept the ruling of the Council,
breaking away and forming their own council, wherein they re-arranged and, it seems, added
to the texts to suit their own purposes. During the next 250 years this company split up
and resplintered into numerous factions, each having evolved its own set of doctrines and
disciplinary codes.[44] None of these texts have survived:
again, as with Venerable Purána, we learn the survival-value of organization.[45] The fact that the Suttas and Vinaya[46]
have survived as coherent entities can now be seen to be itself strong evidence that they
have survived unchanged.
Conclusions
With the closing of the Second
Council we have no further Canonical information regarding the history of the Suttas.
Gleanings from later texts inform us that a Third Council was held in the time of King
Asoka, at which meeting the rift which had opened up more than a century earlier, with the
Second Council, now widened and variant forms of doctrine began to emerge which eventually
formed what is now known as Maháyána. The four Nikáyas were left unchanged while the
Khuddaka Nikáya was cast essentially into the form in which we now have it. (A few of the
very late additions to this collection -- notably the Buddhavamsa -- appear to have
undergone slight further editing, perhaps at the Fourth Council. On this, see Adikaram's
lucid, though technical, Early History of Buddhism in Ceylon (Gunasena, Colombo,
1946), p. 35.). Also, missions were sent to many countries and the Teaching was
successfully transplanted in all directions. Of particular note, the Order was established
in Ceylon from whence came many of the later reports and which became the center for
study, preservation and practice of the Pali Suttas for many centuries.
About 450 years after the Buddha a
famine struck Ceylon. For twelve years food was so scarce that the Order of monks was
almost decimated partly, we are told, due to some of the laity turning to cannibalism.
Some of the Suttas were in danger of being lost. Monks who were too weak to stand
rehearsed the texts where they lay. When at last the famine ended, it was realized that
the texts needed to be put into writing for their greater protection.[47] Not only the famine but -- according to Adikeram (op. cit.,
p. 79) -- the danger of frequent invasions from South India, the entry into the Order
of irresponsible and irreligious people (on which point see Mahávamsa 33,101), and the
fickle favour of kings also played a part in this decision. Accordingly, a Fourth Council
was convened, wherein this was accomplished.
In the centuries after this Council
the texts continued to be preserved as much by recital as by manuscript, for making even
one handwritten copy of the five Nikáyas, of the Vinaya, and of all the material that had
evolved and survived alongside them, the Abhidhamma, the Commentaries, the Chronicles, and
so forth, would have been a labour of many years and then the manuscript had to be
preserved against the manifold dangers of destruction. But by this time the Suttas were
firmly embedded in the minds of those who learned them as being sacred and unalterable by
as much as a single syllable.
The dangers we have seen to be
inherent in an open Canon were long since past. It was no longer possible for additional
material to be added to the texts. There still remained the dangers of accidental
alteration (copyists' errors, etc: see previous footnote) and of loss
due to the disappearance of companies and sometimes the decline of the Order. We need not
discuss these in any detail. We know what variations exist in manuscripts that were
separated from each other by thousands of miles and hundreds of years, and we are
confident that these differences are not significant. Although we cannot assert definitely
that no material was lost, at most only a small amount could have disappeared without our
knowing of it through the various records that were made relating to the texts, some of
which, such as the Asokan edicts were engraved in stone. We can accept that the texts
survived, at least for the most part, and with no more than insignificant changes, to the
present, weathering various worldly vicissitudes which we need not trace; for we have now
explored the origin of the Suttas and discovered how it is that these Suttas which we have
today can be reliably regarded as being the actual Teaching of Gotama Buddha.
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Footnotes:
35. Since this evidence --
"One time Venerable so-and-so dwelt at..." -- once noted seems obvious, it may
be wondered why it has been unreported until now. That the Commentaries should not remark
upon it is not remarkable, not only because they lacked in the Fifth Century A.D. the
scholarly apparatus available today -- word- and name-dictionaries, concordances, indexes,
etc. and of course printed editions of the texts, annotated and convenient to use -- but
also because India has been historically unhistorical-minded (see footnote 15): a concern with dates has traditionally been regarded as
secondary to the act of placing one's faith in a teaching. Historical questions are a
particularly Western concern. As to why, therefore, modern scholars have failed to note
this evidence, it may be kindest to allow each reader to form his own judgement. [Back to text]
36. A half dozen or so of these
later discourses speak only of "a certain (unnamed) monk," or "a group of
monks." Naturally in these cases we cannot know definitely that the monks were
contemporaries of the Buddha. However, there is no reason to suppose otherwise: we find
other texts wherein unnamed monks converse with the Buddha. There are another half-dozen
or so Suttas involving monks who are mentioned nowhere else in the Canon and whose
generation therefore cannot be established except by reference to post-Canonical works.
Again, this is a feature found in some Suttas that are not later additions. At any rate,
we would expect that were there any Suttas involving second generation monks, at least
some of those monks would have been well-known leaders of companies, not the obscure or
unnamed. No discourses involving nuns, it seems, are later additions. [Back
to text]
37. One of these monks,
Venerable Sabbakámí, has some verses (453-58) in the Theragáthá of the Khuddaka
Nikáya (see below) -- appropriately enough, on the subject of
sensuality (káma). He is specifically identified in the report of the Second
Council as being the oldest monk in the world, 120 years of age, and as having been a
pupil of Venerable Ánanda.
Westerners sometimes express surprise, or more than
surprise, at the number of monks reported to have lived to extreme old age. However, it is
recognized that the qualities that are co-adjuncts of mental calmness such as lack of
bodily stress, etc. contribute to longevity; and since it is the business of monks to
cultivate calmness, though not for the sake of long life, it is to be expected that monks
would outlive the general populace. The Suttas tell us -- Dh. 109, etc. -- that
longevity is also linked to respect for one's elders. However, since this would not seem
to be statistically quantifiable it is unlikely that Western medical science will ever be
in a position either to confirm or disprove this thesis. [Back to text]
38. Surprise is sometimes
expressed at the quantity of verse in the five Nikáyas. But verse not only has obvious
mnemonic value whereby the compilers would give it priority over prose passages, but less
obviously but more importantly it has great inspirational value. It is sometimes suggested
that not only was verse seldom spoken spontaneously as the texts often report, but also
that much of it "must have been" created in a later, more literate time. Such is
the prejudice of a prosaic era; but a more poetic age -- Elizabethan England, for example
-- would not have shared this misconception. [Back to text]
39. Although we are unable to
cite an example of such a referring Sutta which does not seem to be a later addition, at
least one such text -- S. XLVI,3 (iv,286-7) -- was evidently not a later creation,
but was spoken during the Buddha's lifetime. [Back to text]
40. As at, e.g., Mahávagga
V,13,9 (i,195-6) = Ud. V,6 (59), at S. XII,31 (ii,47-50), at A. III,32
(i,133-4), etc. The above examples all refer to or quote from passages found today in the
Sutta Nipáta of the Khuddaka Nikáya. [Back to text]
41. This notion of older and
younger layers of text assumes, contrary to the evidence, that the first four Nikáyas
grew over a period of centuries by a process of heterogeneous accretion until they reached
their present form. As such, it is part of the syncretistic approach which we have already
rejected. Certainly some discourses are older than others inasmuch as they did not all
appear simultaneously. Other than the few exceptions already discussed, it took about
forty-five years for them to evolve; and it should be no great surprise that various
individuals, including the Buddha, might, on occasion, refer to or even quote from what
had already been said. [Back to text]
42. Venerable Aggamahápandita
A. P. Buddhadatta Maháthera, on p. 260 of his collection of monographs, Corrections
of Geiger's Mahávamsa Etc. (Ambalangoda, Ceylon, 1957). [Back to text]
43. That the Twelfth Khandhaka
account of this Council makes no mention whatsoever of a recitation of the Suttas, nor any
decisions as to the fifth Nikáya, nor the placement of later additions within the four
Nikáyas, does not mean that they were not done then. First, the report as given omits a
number of other important details as well, such as the refusal of the Vesálí company to
accept the Council's decisions and to abandon their practices. Second, it would be
expected by all monks as a matter of course that whenever a body of monks met, they would
review their texts in order to prevent or discover variances. Third, the purpose of the
account was to condemn the Vesálí monks. The full list of ten points is censured, item
by item, three times in the space of fifteen pages and denounced as a whole many times
more. To have reported on other matters would have diluted the force of the
anathematization. Finally, in the Bakkula Sutta (discussed above)
a phrase is inserted -- "inasmuch as for eighty years Venerable Bakkula has..."
-- after each statement of Venerable Bakkula's achievements. This phrase (according to the
Commentary: MA. iv,193) was inserted by the elders who made the recension of the Teaching.
We are not told which elders, but from our own examination we can see clearly that it
would have had to have been the elders of this Second Council. [Back to text]
44. Some scholars might question
the identification of the Vesálí company with the progenitors of the splinter groups or
suggest, more modestly, that only some of these sects evolved from the Vesálí monks, the
remainder breaking away from the Councils' lineage at later dates. These are scholarly
issues which it would be out of place to discuss here. Perhaps the fullest discussion,
together with informative charts, is to be found in the Prefatory Notes to the Aung/Rhys
Davids translation of the Kathá Vatthu (Points of Controversy, Pali Text Society,
London, 1915). [Back to text]
45. Though these texts have not
survived as collections, yet scattered fragments have been rediscovered in Sanskrit, and
more coherent units have been preserved in Chinese and Tibetan translations. [Back to text]
46. The evolution of the Vinaya
is parallel to that of the Suttas. A description of its evolution would be more complex,
partly due to the need to consider what is nowadays known as the "old
commentary"; but it would follow the same lines of reasoning used herein; and it
would arrive at the same conclusions: like the four Nikáyas, the Vinaya achieved
essentially its final form during the first century following the Buddha. The question of
when the "old commentary" came to be embedded in the text, and of how the
Parivára became semi-attached to the Vinaya proper need not concern us. For a short note
on this subject, see the Appendix. [Back
to text]
47. Although writing had been
known in India for perhaps two centuries before the time of the Buddha, apparently the
technology of paper and ink was as yet undeveloped. Messages, letters and the like might
have been scratched onto the smooth underside of bark, then rubbed with black oil to
"ink" the writing, but no way had then been found to preserve for long what was
thus marked. No clay tablets have been found from this era, although two brick
inscriptions of a Sanskrit Sútra, dating some centuries after the Buddha, have been found
at Nálandá: Epigraphia Indica XXI, pp. 177-99.
Well before the time of the famine in Ceylon it had been
discovered that when young ola leaves, scraped and boiled, were marked with treated carbon
black, the writing produced could be legibly preserved for many years. Only then did
recording become worth the effort involved. The results, however, are not entirely in
favour of the written record. The critical editions of the texts strongly suggest that
almost all the variant readings that are noted therein are the result of copyists' errors.
Very rarely do these variant readings make a difference in meaning; usually it is a matter
of a word being added or dropped, or differences as regards abridgement, spelling, and the
like. [Back to text]
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