Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch Volume II Part 6

[Footnote 125: Chap. XXI, which is however a later addition.]

[Footnote 126: Dig. Nik. 32.]

[Footnote 127: Watters, _Yuan Chw.a.n.g_, II. p. 160.]

[Footnote 128: The Mahavyutpatti (65) gives a list of 105 sutras.]

[Footnote 129: The word param-ita means as an adjective _gone to the further sh.o.r.e_ or _transcendent_. As a feminine substantive it means a transcendent virtue or perfection.]

[Footnote 130: See Walleser, _Prajna-paramita_ in _Quellen der Religionsgeschichte_, pp. 15 ff. _S.B.E._ XLIX. Nanjio, Catalogue Nos.

1-20 and Rajendralala Mitra's _Nepalese Buddhist Literature_, pp. 177 ff. Versions are mentioned consisting of 125,000 verses, 100,000 verses, 25,000 verses, 10,000 verses and 8,000 verses respectively.

(Similarly at the beginning of the Mahabharata we are told that the Epic consists of 8,800 verses, of 24,000 and of 100,000.) Of these the last or Asht?asahasrika has been published in the _Bibliotheca Indica_ and the second or Satasahasrika is in process of publication. It is in prose, so that the expression "verses" appears not to mean that the works are Gathas. A Khotanese version of the Vajracchedika is edited in h.o.e.rnle's _Ma.n.u.script Remains_ by Sten Konow. The Sanskrit text was edited by Max Muller in _Anecdota Oxoniensia._]

[Footnote 131: The Sanskrit text has been edited by Kern and Nanjio in _Bibliotheca Buddhica_; translated by Burnouf (_Le Lotus de la bonne Loi_), 1852 and by Kern (Saddharma-Pun?d?arika) in _S.B.E._ vol. XXI.]

[Footnote 132: There appears to have been an earlier Chinese version of 255 A.D. but it has been lost. See Nanjio, p. 390. One of the later Chinese versions alludes to the existence of two recensions (Nanjio, No. 139). See _B.E.F.E.O._ 1911, p. 453. Fragments of a shorter and apparently earlier recension of the Lotus have been discovered in E.

Turkestan. See _J.R.A.S._ 1916, pp. 269-277.]

[Footnote 133: Edited by Rajendralala Mitra in the _Bibliotheca Indica_ and partially translated in the same series. A later critical edition by Lefmann, 1902-8.]

[Footnote 134: The early Chinese translations seem doubtful. One said to have been made under the later Han has been lost. See Nanjio, No.

159.]

[Footnote 135: See Burnouf, _Introduction_, pp. 458 ff. and _J.R.A.S._ 1905, pp. 831 ff. Rajendralala Mitra, _Nepalese Buddhist Literature_, p. 113. A brief a.n.a.lysis is given in _J.A.S.B._ June, 1905 according to which the sutra professes to be the work of a human author, Jina of the clan of Katyayana born at Campa. An edition of the Sanskrit text published by the Buddhist Text Society is cited but I have not seen it. Chinese translations were made in 443 and 515 but the first is incomplete and does not correspond with our Sanskrit text.]

[Footnote 136: Abstract by Rajendralala Mitra, _Nepalese Buddhist Lit_. p. 241.]

[Footnote 137: See Nanjio, No. 127 and F.W.K. Muller in _Abhandl. der K. Preuss. Akad. der Wissenschaften_, 1908. The Uigur text is published in _Bibliotheca Buddhica_, 1914. Fragments of the Sanskrit text have also been found in Turkestan.]

[Footnote 138: Abstract by Raj. Mitra, _Nepalese Buddhist Lit._ pp. 90 ff. The Sikshasamuccaya cites the Gan?d?a-vyuha several times and does not mention the Avatam?saka.]

[Footnote 139: The statement was first made on the authority of Takakusu quoted by Winternitz in _Ges. Ind. Lit_. II. i. p. 242.

Watanabe in _J.R.A.S._ 1911, 663 makes an equally definite statement as to the ident.i.ty of the two works. The ident.i.ty is confirmed by Pelliot in _J.A._ 1914, II. pp. 118-121.]

[Footnote 140: Abstract by Raj. Mitra, _Nepalese Buddhist Lit._ pp. 81 ff. Quoted in Santideva's Bodhicaryavatara, VIII. 106.]

[Footnote 141: See _J.R.A.S._ 1911, 663.]

[Footnote 142: Abstract by Raj. Mitra, _Nepalese Buddhist Lit._ pp. 81 ff.]

[Footnote 143: Translated in part by Beal, _Catena of Buddhist Scriptures_, pp. 286-369. See also Teitaro Suzuki, _Outlines of Mahayana_, p. 157. For notices of the text see Nanjio, Nos. 399, 446, 1588. Fa-Hsien, Chap. XXIX. For the equivalence of Shou-leng-yen and Surangama see Nanjio's note to No. 399 and Julien, _Methode_, 1007 and Vasilief, p. 175.]

[Footnote 144: See Sikshas, ed. Bendall, pp. 8,91 and _h.o.e.rnle, Ma.n.u.script remains_, I. pp. 125 ff.]

[Footnote 145: Mahayana-sutralankara, XIX. 29.]

[Footnote 146: _E.g._ the Rashtra-pala-paripr?iccha edited in Sanskrit by Finot, _Biblioth. Buddhica_, 1901. The Sanskrit text seems to agree with the Chinese version. The real number of sutras in the Ratnakut?a seems to be 48, two being practically the same but represented as uttered on different occasions.]

[Footnote 147: There is another somewhat similar collection of sutras in the Chinese Canon called Ta Tsi or Mahasannipata but unlike the Ratnakut?a it seems to contain few well-known or popular works.]

[Footnote 148: I know of these works only by Raj. Mitra's abstracts, _Nepal. Bud. Lit._ pp. 95 and 101. The prose text is said to have been published in Sanskrit at Calcutta, 1873.]

[Footnote 149: Raj. Mitra, _Nepalese Buddhist Lit_. pp. 285 ff. The Sanskrit text was published for the Buddhist Text Society, Calcutta, 1898.]

[Footnote 150: Avadana is primarily a great and glorious act: hence an account of such an act.]

[Footnote 151: The Avadana-sataka (Feer, _Annales du Musee Guimet_, XVIII) seems to be entirely Hinayanist.]

[Footnote 152: Edited by Senart, 3 vols. 1882-1897. Windisch, _Die Komposition des Mahavastu_, 1909. Article "Mahavastu" in _E.R.E._]

[Footnote 153: So too do the words Horapathaka (astrologer), Ujjhebhaka (? Uzbek), Peliyaksha (? Felix). The word Yogacara (I. 120) may refer simply to the practice of Yoga and not to the school which bore this name.]

[Footnote 154: Edited by Cowell and Neil, 1886. See Nanjio, 1344.]

[Footnote 155: Edited by Bendall in _Bibl. Buddhica._]

[Footnote 156: Nanjio, No. 1466. For a learned discussion of this work see Levi and Chavannes in _J.A._ 1916, Nos. I and II.]

[Footnote 157: It is not likely that the Tathagata-guhya-sutra which it quotes is the same as the Tantra with a similar name a.n.a.lysed by Rajendralal Mitra.]

[Footnote 158: Watters, _J.R.A.S._ 1898, p. 331 says there seems to have been an earlier translation.]

[Footnote 159: Many works with this t.i.tle will be found in Nanjio.]

[Footnote 160: But the Chinese t.i.tle seems rather to represent Ratnarasi.]

[Footnote 161: See Nanjio, pp. xiii-xvii.]

[Footnote 162: Mahayana-sutralankara. See Levi's introduction, p. 14.

The "Questions" sutra is Brahma-paripr?iccha.]

CHAPTER XXI

CHRONOLOGY OF THE MAHAYANA

In the previous chapters I have enumerated some features of Mahayanism, such as the worship of Bodhisattvas leading to mythology, the deification of Buddhas, entailing a theology as complicated as the Christian creeds, the combination of metaphysics with religion, and the rise of new scriptures consecrating all these innovations. I will now essay the more difficult task of arranging these phenomena in some sort of chronological setting.

The voluminous Chinese literature concerning Buddhism offers valuable a.s.sistance, for the Chinese, unlike the Hindus, have a natural disposition to write simple narratives recording facts and dates. But they are diarists and chroniclers rather than historians. The Chinese pilgrims to India give a good account of their itinerary and experiences, but they have little idea of investigating and arranging past events and merely recount traditions connected with the places which they visited. In spite of this their statements have considerable historical value and on the whole harmonize with the literary and archaelogical data furnished by India.

The Tibetan Lama Taranatha who completed his History of Indian Buddhism[163] in 1608 is a less satisfactory authority. He merits attention but also scepticism and caution. His work is a compilation but is not to be despised on that ground, for the Tibetan translations of Sanskrit works offer a rich mine of information about the history of the Mahayana. Unfortunately few of these works take the historical point of view and Taranatha's own method is as uncritical as his materials. Dire confusion prevails as to chronology and even as to names,[164] so that the work is almost useless as a connected account, though it contains many interesting details.

Two epochs are of special importance for the development of later Indian Buddhism, that of Kanishka and that of Vasubandhu and his brother Asanga. The reader may expect me to discuss at length the date of Kanishka's accession, but I do not propose to do so for it may be hoped that in the next few years archaelogical research in India or Central Asia will fix the chronology of the Kushans and meanwhile it is waste of time to argue about probabilities or at any rate it can be done profitably only in special articles. At present the majority of scholars place his accession at about 78 A.D., others put it back to 58 B.C. and arrange the Kushan kings in a different order,[165] while still others[166] think that he did not come to the throne until the second century was well advanced. The evidence of art, particularly of numismatics, indicates that Kanishka reigned towards the end of his dynasty rather than at the beginning, but the use of Greek on his coins and his traditional connection with the beginnings of the Mahayana are arguments against a very late date. If the date 78 A.D.

is accepted, the conversion of the Yueh-chih to Buddhism and its diffusion in Central Asia cannot have been the work of Kanishka, for Buddhism began to reach China by land about the time of the Christian era.[167] There is however no reason to a.s.sume that they were his work. Kanishka, like Constantine, probably favoured a winning cause, and Buddhism may have been gradually making its way among the Kushans and their neighbours for a couple of centuries before his time. In any case, however important his reign may have been for the Buddhist Church, I do not think that the history of the Mahayana should be made to depend on his date. Chinese translations, supported by other evidence, indicate that the Mahayanist movement had begun about the time of our era. If it is proved that Kanishka lived considerably later, we should not argue that Mahayanism is later than was supposed but rather that his relation towards it has been misunderstood.[168]

The date of Vasubandhu has also been much discussed and scholars have generally placed him in the fourth or fifth century but Peri[169]