The Scriptures of Mankind: An Introduction by Charles Samuel Braden
Chapter 6: The Sacred Literature of Buddhism
The first thing to be said about Buddhist sacred literature is that it is very extensive. In Japan over four thousand books are reckoned as canonical. Contrast this with the sixty-six books of the Protestant versions of the Bible. A complete edition of the Buddhist scriptures was
published in Japan some twenty years ago, and it ran to fifty substantial sized volumes. This, to be sure, included some scholarly notes also, but it indicates something as to the quantitative aspects of Buddhist scriptures. If one wishes a copy of the entire Christian Bible it can be bought in a single volume, well printed and bound, for as little as fifty cents. The price of the above mentioned set of Buddhist sacred writings, in terms of pre-inflation money, was two hundred and fifty dollars. This is not a wholly fair comparison, the writer well understands, for the quality of printing and binding of the compared Bibles varies greatly, and besides, the
cheapness of the Bible is due to a heavy subsidy to the Bible Societies, enabling them to sell the Bible at a very low price. Yet it does tell something about the Buddhist scriptures. They are vast, and as yet no one has felt moved to subsidize their publication, at least as a whole, to the point of making them available to everyman.
Of course, Buddhism is a world religion. It is found all over eastern Asia. Originating in India in the sixth century B.C. as an heretical reform movement in Hinduism, it, unlike the mother faith, spread widely over Asia and even, to some extent, into Europe, though no permanent result of its teaching can be surely detected. It eventually almost entirely disappeared from India proper, but not until it had made itself at home in Tibet, China, Japan, and all southeastern Asia and Ceylon. In the course of time it developed two major divisions, one known as the
Mahayana or the Great Vehicle and the other as Hinayana or Lesser Vehicle, roughly
comparable to the two major divisions in Christianity, or Protestant and Catholic. In general the Mahayana spread northward and is often called northern Buddhism, while the Hinayana spread south and southeastward. The latter represents the more nearly original type of Buddhist
thought and practice. Each developed special scriptures of its own although there is much that is held by them in common. In this respect again they somewhat resemble Protestantism and
Roman Catholicism which have each a different canon, although the great part of the Bible is held by both.
The Hinayana canon or, as it is called, the Pali or Theravada canon has come down to us
through the Pali language, a vernacular derived from the Sanskrit and closely akin to the native language of Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, which was Magadhi. The Mahayana scriptures have been preserved chiefly in the Sanskrit, although some Mahayana books, while possibly originally in Sanskrit, are known to us only through Tibetan or Chinese translations. The Pali canon is a very definite one as we shall presently see. The Mahayana scriptures form no hard and fast canon. Sects of the Mahayana, of which there are a considerable number, differ as to the scriptures they accept and particularly emphasize.
The history of the sacred literature of the Buddhists is really a part of the history of the sacred literature of India, for it was all produced either on Indian soil, or by Indians who carried the new faith to other lands. But Buddhism having been for so long a religion, reaching far beyond India, and having almost entirely disappeared from India itself, Buddhist scriptures may very fittingly be treated separately.
It will be necessary, however, to go back to the beginnings of the new heretical movement in Hinduism and see how it arose and what therefore these new scriptures have to say on the great central themes of Hindu scripture.
Buddhism arose in the sixth century B.C. It will be recalled that in treating of the Upanishads mention was made of the fact that the older priestly religion of the Vedas and Brahmanas had lost its appeal to many who were not of the Brahmin or priestly caste. There was in the years from perhaps the seventh century B.C. the beginning of reflection by non-Brahmins and in particular by men and women of the Kshatriya or warrior-ruler caste concerning the great questions of God, the world, and man’s origin and final destiny, and Gautama himself was, according to tradition, of that class, and was not out of character in seeking the way out of the round of rebirth, which by his time had become a matter of common belief. People of that period believed in Karma, the law of the deed, the law of retribution which inexorably operated to keep one on the wheel of rebirth. How should one escape the evil and misery and suffering inherent in life, as the wheel of birth endlessly turned?
The whole story of Buddha’s life, told over and over again in Buddhist scriptures, is concerned chiefly with this problem. There is much that is legendary in the numerous tellings of his life story, but the basic facts seem to be clear. Prince Buddha, despite the happy circumstances in which his life was set, became oppressed with the evil of the world and its suffering, and early became obsessed with a passion to be freed from this round of birth. Everything possible was done to keep his mind off the subject and to make him happy. But after he had seen, despite every effort to keep him from doing so, the ugly facts of sickness, poverty, old age and death, he finally renounced his princely home and comfort, even a new-born son and his much loved
wife, Yasodhara, and went out into the world to become, first, a wandering mendicant seeking by austerity and ascetic practices to find release. When this proved of no avail he abandoned it and sought by meditation the way of knowledge to find peace. Ultimately this brought him to the state of enlightenment, and he became the Enlightened One or the Buddha. What that meant precisely, we shall see a little later.
Having found it for himself he now sought to help others find the same release he had himself found. Soon he was surrounded by disciples who craved release also, and through his teaching found it. They followed him about from place to place seeking to help others. In the rainy season when they could not travel, they lived together in a sacred grove, and so evolved the Sangha or monastic order which has been the chief institutional feature of southern Buddhism.
Eventually a woman’s order was founded -- Bhikkhunis they were called -- though not without serious misgivings on the part of Gautama, who seems to have had a deep-seated distrust of women. For forty-five years Buddha went up and down a relatively limited section of north central India, teaching and preaching, then died of food poisoning from a meal prepared by one of his humble followers.
During this long ministry (contrast it with the three years or less of Jesus’ ministry) he taught much and said many things many times, and in slightly differing form. Most of his utterances were heard by some one or more of his disciples, who, especially in later years, cherished what he said, and probably remembered a substantial part of it rather correctly. Remember that as yet men were dependent upon oral recall. That writing may have existed, is quite probable. That men trusted, at least in the case of the sacred scriptures, more to oral transmission than to writing is certain. So it may well be supposed that the disciples of Buddha, hearing over and over again his discourses, would be able to remember them fairly well. At all events there is no evidence that at Gautama’s death in c. 485 B.C. there was a single written record of anything he ever said or did. Yet a great part of the extensive body of sacred Buddhist literature purports to be the record of what he did and said.
Long before Gautama died he had become a tradition. There are traces of near deification, even before his death, or at least a dependence upon him which ordinarily is reserved for deity. Very quickly after his death the process of apotheosis was accelerated and, in the end, he who
discovered the very definitely non-theistic way of salvation, declaring that even if the gods exist they are powerless to help man achieve salvation, became himself essentially a god. He who declared that man could only save himself by his own effort came either directly or indirectly to be regarded as a helper in the process of achieving salvation. Soon his relics were being
venerated, stupas being erected around some very insignificant part of his body or something that had belonged to him. One of the greatest pagodas in the Buddhist world enshrines a tooth of the Buddha, another a hair from his head.
Obviously as he assumed more and more this character of divinity (though never so
acknowledged even by his followers) , his words became of greater and greater significance.
There was a definite effort to recall what he said, and many different disciples must have contributed to the growing store of remembered words. Naturally there was not always
agreement as to just what he had said. Variant versions of his sayings thus arose, and as these were transmitted orally they must have been added to, or some things may have dropped out.
Thus went forward the definite, but for a time wholly informal, process of gathering his sayings and doings which were gradually brought into collections. Tradition has it that this had already been accomplished by the time of his death and that immediately following the death of
Gautama, a Council was held attended by five-hundred Arhants, as those were called who had attained to enlightenment. At this First Council, as it is called, Ananda, close follower of Buddha, was requested to recite what are now regarded as the first two parts of the canon, the Suttas and the Vinaya, so that it might be known exactly what they were. The historicity of this Council, or at least of the fact that so much of the canon was already in existence at that time is generally doubted. This seems to scholars hardly to have been possible -- certainly not in the form in which we now have it.
About a hundred years after the death of Gautama a second Council was called by the elder Yasa at Vesali. A relaxation of discipline in the Order had developed, which threatened the stability of the brotherhood. The very fact of heresy points at a generally accepted norm from which heresy is a variant, though this need not have been the canon as it now exists. While this particular controversy related only to the Vinaya, or book of discipline, it would not be
unnatural that other parts might also be considered. Certainly there is a tradition that the defeated heretical monks held a rival council of ten thousand members, known as the Great Council, and drew up a different recension of the scriptures which among other things, according to the Dipavamsa,1 "broke up the sense and doctrine in the five Nikayas," and
"rejecting some portions of the Sutta and the profound Vinaya, they made another counterfeit Sutta and Vinaya."
Not all scholars are agreed as to the historicity of this Second Council, though most of them think there is some historic basis for the tradition. Differences certainly had begun to develop within the Order, and it is from this event that the traditional eighteen schismatic schools are thought to have taken their rise.2
But in the reign of the Buddhist emperor, Asoka, in 247 B.C., a third Council was held, convoked by the elder Tissa Mogalliputta, attended by a thousand monks, in the city of
Pataliputra. It was called with the purpose of compiling an authoritative set of texts setting forth the true religion. The result of their labor, which continued, according to tradition, for nine months, was the Theravada or "doctrine of the elders," which is held by the Buddhists of Ceylon to be the Pali Canon which is in use there today. They believe that it was brought to Ceylon by one, Mahinda, son of the Emperor Asoka, who, with his sister, introduced Buddhism into Ceylon. Here it was transmitted orally until, during the reign of Vattagamani, 29-17 B.C. it was put in writing. This may not mean that there had been no part of the canon in written form before that time, but there is no certain evidence that earlier written copies existed. It may be
significant that Fa-hsien, the Chinese pilgrim, who travelled in north India during the years 399- 414 AD., found no manuscript of the Vinaya, but only oral tradition. In Pataliputra, reputed site of the Third Council, he came upon a written copy of it.3 If the late writing of this great mass of material is true, we have here another testimony to the remarkable ability of the Indian to
transmit an extensive literature solely through memory. At the same time this would make it easier to explain the vast accretions of matter which could not possibly have come directly from the lips of Buddha himself.
We turn now to an examination of the content of this Theravada, or Pali Canon. Later we shall have occasion to mention at least some of the major Mahayana variants. It falls into three very distinct parts which are designated as Pitakas or "baskets." Thus the whole scripture is called the Tripitaka or the "three baskets." These are:
1. Vinaya-pitaka; 2. Sutta-pitaka; and 3. Abhidhamma-pitaka, or the basket of discipline for the Sangha or Order; the basket of the sayings of the Buddha; and "the basket of higher subtleties as given by Winternitz, or variously as given by others, "the basket of philosophy," or the "basket of apologetic," or defense of the doctrine. The first two may very well contain much that comes from the Buddha himself, though perhaps modified and misinterpreted, but the third, which was not even traditionally supposed to be in existence at the time of the so-called First Council, must certainly have been quite late in taking form.
The Vinaya-pitaka is wholly concerned with the monastic life and, as such, is of little interest to the general reader. Unless he is desirous of knowing what goes on inside a monastery or
convent, he is not likely to read far in this part of Buddhist scripture. The heart of it is the discipline practiced by the monks and nuns. Twice every month at the new and full moon the Upasatha ceremony took place. This consisted of the reciting of the Patimokkha or set of rules, two hundred and twenty-seven in number, by which the monks were supposed to live. At the conclusion of each of the eight chapters the reciter would ask whether any monk had been guilty of the particular sin therein mentioned. If so, he must make confession of his guilt. For each infraction there was a corresponding penalty, for four, expulsion from the order was indicated. These were incontinence, theft, killing or persuading one to suicide, and false
boasting of divine powers. The Patimokkha itself is not a part of the canon, but the whole first section of the Vinaya-pitaka, known as the Sutta-Vibhanga, is little more than a commentary upon it. Each separate sutta, or, in this case, each single article of the Patimokkha is explained word by word and the occasion which gave rise to its promulgation by the Buddha is told. There are eight kinds of greater or lesser sins described in the eight chapters, each with its
corresponding penalty. Following the rules for monks is a corresponding section which gives rules for the nuns, or Bhikkhunis.
The second part consists of the Mahavagga and Cullavagga or greater and lesser sections, which form a supplement to part I. The Mahavagga itself in ten sections treats of the rules for
admission to the order, for the Upasatha ceremony described above, for life during the rainy
seasons, and for the celebration at its conclusion; rules for articles of dress and furniture;
medicines and food; the annual distribution of robes; materials for robes; regulations for
sleeping and for sick monks; legal procedure inside the order; and, finally, procedure in case of schism.
The Cullavagga deals with discipline in case of minor infractions of order, rules for bathing, dress, dwellings, furniture, duties of different classes of monks, teachers, novices, and exclusion from the Upasatha ceremony. In the tenth section are given the corresponding lesser rules for the nuns, and then follow two sections giving the history of the first and second Councils, to which reference was made above.
The third section, the Parivara, is probably a late addition and is of little interest or importance.
A rule book is never a very interesting or inspiring document except for those involved in the game. But happily there is a lighter side to the Vinaya-pitaka which, if it can be found, is not without popular interest. Since, as indicated, in explaining the rules, stories are sometimes told indicating their origin, some quite interesting legends and stories are recounted, which are found nowhere else in Buddhist literature.
One which, whether it ever actually happened or not, throws light upon the character of Buddha as he was remembered by his followers, is, in abridged form, as follows:
Once a certain monk had a serious disturbance of the bowels and lay fallen in his own excrement. The blessed one, or Buddha, and Ananda, found him.
"Have you no one to wait on you," said Buddha.
"No, Lord."
"Why do not the Bhikkhus wait upon you?"
"Because I am of no service to them," he replied.
Then Buddha sent Ananda to bring water and with his help he washed the monk of his filth and carried him to his own bed.
Later Buddha spoke to the assembled monks and asked them:
"Is there a sick monk among you?"
"There is, Lord."
"Is there any one to wait upon him?"
"No, Lord."
"Why do not the monks wait on him?"
"Because he is of no service to the monks, Lord." Then the Buddha said to them: