Charles Eliot
Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 1
CHAPTER XIII
THE CANON
1
There are extant in several languages large collections of Buddhist scriptures described by some European writers as the Canon. The name is convenient and not incorrect, but the various canons are not altogether similar and the standard for the inclusion or exclusion of particular works is not always clear. We know something of four or five canons.
(1) The Pali Canon, accepted by the Buddhists of Ceylon, Burma and Siam, and rendered accessible to European students by the Pali Text Society. It professes to contain the works recognized as canonical by the Council of Asoka and it is reasonably homogeneous, that is to say, although some ingenuity may be needed to harmonize the different strata of which it consists, it does not include works composed by several schools.
(2) The Sanskrit Canon or Canons.
(a) Nepalese scriptures. These do not correspond with any Pali texts and all belong to the Mahayana. There appears to be no standard for fixing the canonical character of Mahayanist works. Like the Upanishads they are held to be revealed from time to time.
(b) Buddhist texts discovered in Central Asia. Hitherto these have been merely fragments, but the number of manuscripts found and not yet published permits the hope that longer texts may be forthcoming. Those already made known are partly Mahayanist and partly similar to the Pali Canon though not a literal translation of it. It is not clear to what extent the Buddhists of Central Asia regarded the Hina and Mahayanist scriptures as separate and distinct. Probably each school selected for itself a small collection of texts as authoritative598.
(3) The Chinese Canon. This is a gigantic collection of Buddhist works made and revised by order of various Emperors. The imperial imprimatur is the only standard of canonicity. The contents include translations of works belonging to all schools made from the first to the thirteenth century A.D. The originals were apparently all in Sanskrit and were probably the texts of which fragments have been found in Central Asia. This canon also includes some original Chinese works.
(4) There is a somewhat similar collection of translations into Tibetan. But whereas the Chinese Canon contains translations dated from 67 A.D. onwards, the Tibetan translations were made mainly in the ninth and eleventh centuries and represent the literature esteemed by the mediæval Buddhism of Bengal. Part at least of this Tibetan Canon has been translated into Mongol.
Renderings of various books into Uigur, Sogdian, Kuchanese, "Nordarisch" and other languages of Central Asia have been discovered by recent explorers. It is probable that they are all derived from the Sanskrit Canon and do not represent any independent tradition. The scriptures used in Japan and Korea are simply special editions of the Chinese Canon, not translations.
In the following pages I propose to consider the Pali Canon, postponing until later an account of the others. It will be necessary, however, to touch on the relations of Pali and Sanskrit texts.
The scriptures published by the Pali Text Society represent the canon of the ancient sect called Vibhajjavâdins and the particular recension of it used at the monastery in Anuradhapura called Mahâvihâra. It is therefore not incorrect to apply to this recension such epithets as southern or Sinhalese, provided we remember that in its origin it was neither one nor the other, for the major part of it was certainly composed in India599. It was probably introduced into Ceylon in the third century B.C. and it is also accepted in Burma, Siam and Camboja600. Thus in a considerable area it is the sole and undisputed version of the scriptures.
The canon is often known by the name of Tripiṭaka601 or Three Baskets. When an excavation was made in ancient India it was the custom to pass up the earth in baskets along a line of workmen602 and the metaphorical use of the word seems to be taken from this practice and to signify transmission by tradition.
The three Pitakas are known as Vinaya, Sutta, and Abhidhamma. Vinaya means discipline and the works included in this division treat chiefly of the rules to be observed by the members of the Sangha. The basis of these rules is the Pâtimokkha, the ancient confessional formula enumerating the offences which a monk can commit. It was read periodically to a congregation of the order and those guilty of any sin had to confess it. The text of the Pâtimokkha is in the Vinaya combined with a very ancient commentary called the Sutta-vibhanga. The Vinaya also contains two treatises known collectively as the Khandakas but more frequently cited by their separate names as Mahâvagga and Cullavagga. The first deals with such topics as the rules for admission to the order, and observance of fast days, and in treating of each rule it describes the occasion on which the Buddha made it and to some extent follows the order of chronology. For some parts of the master's life it is almost a biography. The Cullavagga is similar in construction but less connected in style603. The Vinaya contains several important and curious narratives and is a mine of information about the social conditions of ancient India, but much of it has the same literary value as the book of Leviticus. Of greater general interest is the Sutta Pitaka, in which the sermons and discourses of the Buddha are collected. Sutta is equivalent to the Sanskrit word Sûtra, literally a thread, which signifies among the Brahmans a brief rule or aphorism but in Pali a relatively short poem or narrative dealing with a single object. This Sutta Pitaka is divided into five collections called Nikâyas. The first four are mainly in prose and contain discourses attributed to Gotama or his disciples. The fifth is mostly in verse and more miscellaneous.
The four collections of discourses bear the names of Dîgha, Majjhima, Saṃyutta and Anguttara. The first, meaning long, consists of thirty-four narratives. They are not all sermons and are of varying character, antiquity and interest, the reason why they are grouped together being simply their length604. In some of them we may fancy that we catch an echo of Gotama's own words, but in others the legendary character is very marked. Thus the Mahâsamaya and Aṭânâṭiya suttas are epitomes of popular mythology tacked on to the history of the Buddha. But for all that they are interesting and ancient.
Many of the suttas, especially the first thirteen, are rearrangements of old materials put together by a considerable literary artist who lived many generations after the Buddha. The account of the Buddha's last days is an example of such a compilation which attains the proportions of a Gospel and shows some dramatic power though it is marred by the juxtaposition of passages composed in very different styles.
The Majjhima-Nikâya is a collection of 152 discourses of moderate (majjhima) length. Taken as a whole it is perhaps the most profound and impassioned of all the Nikâyas and also the oldest. The sermons which it contains, if not verbatim reports of Gotama's eloquence, have caught the spirit of one who urged with insistent earnestness the importance of certain difficult truths and the tremendous issues dependent on right conduct and right knowledge. The remaining collections, the Saṃyutta and Anguttara, classify the Buddha's utterances under various headings and presuppose older documents which they sometimes quote605. The Saṃyutta consists of a great number of suttas, mostly short, combined in groups treating of a single subject which may be either a person or a topic. The Anguttara, which is a still longer collection, is arranged in numerical groups, a method of classification dear to the Hindus who delight in such computations as the four meditations, the eightfold path, the ten fetters. It takes such religious topics as can be counted in this way and arranges them under the numbers from one to eleven. Thus under three, it treats of thought, word and deed and the applications of this division to morality; of the three messengers of the gods, old-age, sickness and death; of the three great evils, lust, ill-will and stupidity and so on.
The fifth or Khuddaka-Nikâya is perhaps the portion of the Pali scriptures which has found most favour with Europeans, for the treatises composing it are short and some of them of remarkable beauty. They are in great part composed of verses, sometimes disconnected couplets, sometimes short poems. The stanzas are only imperfectly intelligible without an explanation of the occasion to which they refer. This is generally forthcoming, but is sometimes a part of the accepted text and sometimes regarded as merely a commentary. To this division of the Pitaka belong the Dhammapada, a justly celebrated anthology of devotional verses, and the Sutta-Nipâta, a very ancient collection of suttas chiefly in metre. Other important works included in it are the Thera and Therî-gâthâ or poems written by monks and nuns respectively, and the Jâtaka or stories about the Buddha's previous births606. Some of the rather miscellaneous contents of this Nikâya are late and do not belong to the same epoch of thought as the discourses attributed to Gotama. Such are the Buddha-vaṃsa, or lives of Gotama and his twenty-four predecessors, the Cariyâ-Piṭaka, a selection of Jâtaka stories about Gotama's previous births and the Vimâna and Peta-vatthus, accounts of celestial mansions and of the distressful existence led by those who are condemned to be ghosts607.
Though some works comprised in this Nikâya (e.g. the Suttanipâta) are very ancient, the collection, as it stands, is late and probably known only to the southern Church. The contents of it are not quite the same in Ceylon, Burma and Siam, and only a small portion of them has been identified in the Chinese Tripitaka. Nevertheless the word pañcanekâyika, one who knows the five Nikâyas, is found in the inscriptions of Sanchi and five Nikâyas are mentioned in the last books of the Cullavagga. Thus a fifth Nikâya of some kind must have been known fairly early.
The third Pitaka is known by the name of Abhidhamma. Dhamma is the usual designation for the doctrine of the Buddha and Buddhaghosa608 explains the prefix abhi as signifying excess and distinction, so that this Pitaka is considered pre-eminent because it surpasses the others. This pre-eminence consists solely in method and scope, not in novelty of matter or charm of diction. The point of view of the Abhidhamma is certainly later than that of the Sutta Pitaka and in some ways marks an advance, for instead of professing to report the discourses of Gotama it takes the various topics on which he touched, especially psychological ethics, and treats them in a connected and systematic manner. The style shows some resemblance to Sanskrit sûtras for it is so technical both in vocabulary and arrangement that it can hardly be understood without a commentary609. According to tradition the Buddha recited the Abhidhamma when he went to heaven to preach to the gods, and this seems a polite way of hinting that it was more than any human congregation could tolerate or understand. Still throughout the long history of Buddhism it has always been respected as the most profound portion of the scriptures and has not failed to find students. This Pitaka includes the Kathâ-vatthu, attributed to Tissa Moggaliputta who is said to have composed it about 250 B.C. in Asoka's reign610.
There is another division of the Buddhist scriptures into nine angas or members, namely: 1. Suttas. 2. Geyya: mixed prose and verse. 3. Gâthâ: verse. 4. Udâna: ecstatic utterances. 5. Veyyâkaraṇa: explanation. 6. Itivuttaka: sayings beginning with the phrase "Thus said the Buddha." 7. Jâtaka: stories of former births. 8. Abbhutadhamma: stories of wonders. 9. Vedalla: a word of doubtful meaning, but perhaps questions and answers. This enumeration is not to be understood as a statement of the sections into which the whole body of scripture was divided but as a description of the various styles of composition recognized as being religious, just as the Old Testament might be said to contain historical books, prophecies, canticles and so on. Compositions in these various styles must have been current before the work of collection began, as is proved by the fact that all the angas are enumerated in the Majjhima-Nikâya611.
2
This Tripitaka is written in Pali612 which is regarded by Buddhist tradition as the language spoken by the Master. In the time of Asoka the dialect of Magadha must have been understood over the greater part of India, like Hindustani in modern times, but in some details of grammar and phonetics Pali differs from Mâgadhî Prakrit and seems to have been influenced by Sanskrit and by western dialects. Being a literary rather than a popular language it was probably a mixed form of speech and it has been conjectured that it was elaborated in Avanti or in Gândhâra where was the great Buddhist University of Takshaśîlâ. Subsequently it died out as a literary language in India613 but in Ceylon, Burma, Siam and Camboja it became the vehicle of a considerable religious and scholastic literature. The language of Asoka's inscriptions in the third century B.C. is a parallel dialect, but only half stereotyped. The language of the Mahâvastu and some Mahayanist texts, often called the language of the Gâthâs, seems to be another vernacular brought more or less into conformity with Sanskrit. It is probable that in preaching the Buddha used not Pali in the strict sense but the spoken dialect of Magadha614, and that this dialect did not differ from Pali more than Scotch or Yorkshire from standard English, and if for other reasons we are satisfied that some of the suttas have preserved the phrases which he employed, we may consider that apart from possible deviations in pronunciation or inflexion they are his ipsissima verba. Even as we have it, the text of the canon contains some anomalous forms which are generally considered to be Magadhisms615.
The Cullavagga relates how two monks who were Brahmans represented to the Buddha that "monks of different lineage … corrupt the word of the Buddha by repeating it in their own dialect. Let us put the word of the Buddhas into chandas616." No doubt Sanskrit verse is meant, chandas being a name applied to the language of the Vedic verses. Gotama refused: "You are not to put the word of the Buddhas into chandas. Whoever does so shall be guilty of an offence. I allow you to learn the word of the Buddhas each in his own dialect." Subsequent generations forgot this prohibition, but it probably has a historical basis and it indicates the Buddha's desire to make his teaching popular. It is not likely that he contemplated the composition of a body of scriptures. He would have been afraid that it might resemble the hymns of the Brahmans which he valued so little and he wished all men to hear his teaching in the language they understood best. But when after his death his disciples collected his sayings it was natural that they should make at least one version of them in the dialect most widely spoken and that this version should be gradually elaborated in what was considered the best literary form of that dialect617. It is probable that the text underwent several linguistic revisions before it reached its present state.
Pali is a sonorous and harmonious language which avoids combinations of consonants and several difficult sounds found in Sanskrit. Its excellence lies chiefly in its vocabulary and its weakness in its syntax. Its inflexions are heavy and monotonous and the sentences lack concentration and variety. Compound words do not assume such monstrous proportions as in later Sanskrit, but there is the same tendency to make the process of composition do duty for syntax. These faults have been intensified by the fact that the language has been used chiefly for theological discussion. The vocabulary on the other hand is copious and for special purposes admirable. The translator has to struggle continually with the difficulty of finding equivalents for words which, though apparently synonymous, really involve nice distinctions and much misunderstanding has arisen from the impossibility of adequately rendering philosophical terms, which, though their European equivalents sound vague, have themselves a precise significance. On the other hand some words (e.g. dhamma and attho) show an inconveniently wide range of meaning. But the force of the language is best seen in its power of gathering up in a single word, generally a short compound, an idea which though possessing a real unity requires in European languages a whole phrase for its expression. Thus the Buddha bids his disciples be attadîpâ atta-saraṇâ, anañña-saraṇâ: dhammadîpâ dhammasaraṇâ618. "Be ye lamps unto yourselves. Be ye a refuge unto yourselves. Betake yourselves to no external refuge. Hold fast to the truth as a lamp. Hold fast to the truth as a refuge." This is Rhys Davids' translation and excellent both as English and as giving the meaning. But the five Pali words compel attention and inscribe themselves on the memory in virtue of a monumental simplicity which the five English sentences do not possess.
But the feature in the Pali scriptures which is most prominent and most tiresome to the unsympathetic reader is the repetition of words, sentences and whole paragraphs. This is partly the result of grammar or at least of style. The simplicity of Pali syntax and the small use made of dependent sentences, lead to the regular alignment of similar phrases side by side like boards in a floor. When anything is predicated of several subjects, for instance the five Skandhas, it is rare to find a single sentence containing a combined statement. As a rule what has to be said is predicated first of the first Skandha and then repeated totidem verbis of the others. But there is another cause for this tedious peculiarity, namely that for a long period the Pitakas were handed down by oral tradition only. They were first reduced to writing in Ceylon about 20 B.C. in the reign of Vaṭṭagâmani, more than a century and a half after their first importation in an oral form. This circumstance need not throw doubt on the authenticity of the text, for the whole ancient literature of India, prose as well as verse, was handed down by word of mouth and even in the present day most of it could be recovered if all manuscripts and books were lost. The Buddhists did not, like the Brahmans, make minute regulations for preserving and memorizing their sacred texts, and in the early ages of the faith were impressed with the idea that their teaching was not a charm to be learnt by heart but something to be understood and practised. They nevertheless endeavoured, and probably with success, to learn by heart the words of the Buddha, converting them into the dialect most widely understood. It was then a common thing (and the phenomenon may still be seen in India) for a man of learning to commit to memory a whole Veda together with subsidiary treatises on ritual, metre, grammar and genealogy. For such memories it was not difficult to retain the principal points in a series of sermons. The Buddha had preached day by day for about forty-five years. Though he sometimes spoke with reference to special events he no doubt had a set of discourses which he regularly repeated. There was the less objection to such repetition because he was continually moving about and addressing new audiences. There were trained Brahman students among his disciples, and at his death many persons, probably hundreds, must have had by heart summaries of his principal sermons.
But a sermon is less easy to remember than a poem or matter arranged by some method of memoria technica. An obvious aid to recollection is to divide the discourse into numbered heads and attach to each certain striking phrases. If the phrases can be made to recur, so much the better, for there is a guarantee of correctness when an expected formula appears at appropriate points.
It may be too that the wearisome and mechanical iteration of the Pali Canon is partly due to the desire of the Sinhalese to lose nothing of the sacred word imparted to them by missionaries from a foreign country, for repetition to this extent is not characteristic of Indian compositions. It is less noticeable in Sanskrit Buddhist sûtras than in the Pali but is very marked in Jain literature. A moderate use of it is a feature of the Upanishads. In these we find recurring formulæ and also successive phrases constructed on one plan and varying only in a few words619.
But still I suspect that repetition characterized not only the reports of the discourses but the discourses themselves. No doubt the versions which we have are the result of compressing a free discourse into numbered paragraphs and repetitions: the living word of the Buddha was surely more vivacious and plastic than these stiff tabulations. But the peculiarities of scholars can often be traced to the master and the Buddha had much the same need of mnemonics as his hearers. For he had excogitated complicated doctrines and he imparted them without the aid of notes and though his natural wit enabled him to adapt his words to the capacity of his hearers and to meet argument, still his wish was to formulate a consistent statement of his thoughts. In the earliest discourse ascribed to him, the sermon at Benares, we see these habits of numbering and repetition already fully developed. The next discourse, on the absence of a soul, consists in enumerating the five words, form, sensation, perception, sankhâras, and consciousness three times, and applying to each of them consecutively three statements or arguments, the whole concluding with a phrase which is used as a finale in many other places. Artificial as this arrangement sounds when analyzed, it is a natural procedure for one who wished to impress on his hearers a series of philosophic propositions without the aid of writing, and I can imagine that these rhythmical formulæ uttered in that grave and pleasant voice which the Buddha is said to have possessed, seemed to the leisurely yet eager groups who sat round him under some wayside banyan or in the monastery park, to be not tedious iteration but a gradual revelation of truth growing clearer with each repetition.
We gather from the Pitakas that writing was well known in the Buddha's time620. But though it was used for inscriptions, accounts and even letters, it was not used for books, partly because the Brahmans were prejudiced against it, and partly because no suitable material for inditing long compositions had been discovered. There were religious objections to parchment and leaves were not employed till later. The minute account of monastic life given in the Vinaya makes it certain that the monks did not use writing for religious purposes. Equally conclusive, though also negative, is the fact that in the accounts of the assemblies at Râjagaha and Vesâlî621 when there is a dispute as to the correct ruling on a point, there is no appeal to writing but merely to the memory of the oldest and most authoritative monks. In the Vinaya we hear of people who know special books: of monks who are preachers of the Dhamma and others who know the Sutta: of laymen who have learnt a particular suttanta and are afraid it will fall into oblivion unless others learn it from them. Apprehensions are expressed that suttas will be lost if monks neglect to learn them by heart622. From inscriptions of the third century B.C.623 are quoted words like Petakî, a reciter of the Pitakas or perhaps of one Pitaka: Suttântika and Suttântakinî, a man or woman who recites the suttantas: Pancanekâyika, one who recites the five Nikâyas. All this shows that from the early days of Buddhism onwards a succession of persons made it their business to learn and recite the doctrine and disciplinary rules and, considering the retentiveness of trained memories, we have no reason to doubt that the doctrine and rules have been preserved without much loss624.
Not, however, without additions. The disadvantage of oral tradition is not that it forgets but that it proceeds snowball fashion, adding with every generation new edifying matter. The text of the Vedic hymns was preserved with such jealous care that every verse and syllable was counted. But in works of lesser sanctity interpolations and additions were made according to the reciters' taste. We cannot assign to the Mahâbhârata one date or author, and the title of Upanishad is no guarantee for the age or authenticity of the treatises that bear it. Already in the Anguttara-Nikâya625, we hear of tables of contents and the expression is important, for though we cannot give any more precise explanation of it, it shows that care was taken to check the contents of the works accepted as scripture. But still there is little doubt that during the two or three centuries following the Buddha's death, there went on a process not only of collection and recension but also of composition.
An account of the formation of the canon is given in the last two chapters of the Cullavagga626. After the death of the Buddha his disciples met to decide what should be regarded as the correct doctrine and discipline. The only way to do that was to agree what had been the utterances of the master and this, in a country where the oral transmission of teaching was so well understood, amounted to laying the foundations of a canon. Kassapa cross-examined experts as to the Buddha's precepts. For the rules of discipline Upâli was the chief authority and we read how he was asked where such and such a rule—for instance, the commandment against stealing—was promulgated.
"At Râjagaha, sir."
"Concerning whom was it spoken?"
"Dhaniya, the potter's son."
"In regard to what matter?"
"The taking of that which had not been given."
For collecting the suttas they relied on the testimony of Ânanda and asked him where the Brahmajâla627 was spoken. He replied "between Râjagaha and Nâlanda at the royal rest-house at Ambalatthika." "Concerning whom was it spoken?" "Suppiya, the wandering ascetic and Brahmadatta the young Brahman."
Then follows a similar account of the Sâmaññaphala sutta and we are told that Ânanda was "questioned through the five Nikâyas." That is no doubt an exaggeration as applied to the time immediately after the Buddha's death, but it is evidence that five Nikâyas were in existence when this chapter was written628.
