INTRODUCTION

TO THE

JANA-VASABHA SUTTANTĄ.

JUST as the Mahâ-Sudassana is based on one paragraph now incorporated in the Book of the Great Decease, and the Sampasâdaniya is based on another, so our present Suttanta is based on a third.

In the other two cases it is probable, but not certain, that the expansion is later than the paragraph. In this case the available evidence, small as it is, points to a more decisive conclusion. It is easy to point out that probably no one can read the opening paragraphs of the Jana-vasabha, with the episode about the Nâdika adherents in the Book of the Great Decease1 in his mind, without seeing at once that the latter is older. It is not so easy to point out why-so much depends, in the comparison of two passages of literature, on the personal equation, so evasive are the slight nuances of meaning when it is attempted to set them forth at length.

But this can be said. In the Book of the Great Decease the rebirths of certain followers at Nâdika are explained. In the Jana-vasabha, for the sake of the story that follows about Bimbisâra, the well-known king of Magadha, it was necessary to include Magadha; and it was desirable to emphasize Magadha. Magadha is accordingly left out in the first list of localities, and special reasons are then given why it should be included. The story begins by stating that the Buddha used to tell how adherents of the new teaching, who belonged to one or other of ten tribes, had fared in their rebirths. As an example of how he did so the paragraph about the adherents in Nâdika-which is not one of the ten tribes just mentioned is given word for word. Now, unless that paragraph had been before the story-teller he would surely have given, as an example, one or other, or all, of the ten tribes. As it stands the Nâdika paragraph, and indeed the mention of Nâdika at all, is out of place. On the supposition that the

prologue to the story was composed on the basis of the Nâdika paragraph, additions necessary or desirable for the sake of the subsequent story being added to it, everything explains itself, and is in good order.

It is perhaps as well to repeat the caution that it would not follow that the Jana-vasabha, as we have it, is younger than the Mahâ-parinibbâna, as we have it. The Nâdika paragraph may have been in existence, as a separate episode, before both of them. The collection (Nikâya) containing both may have been put together, from older material of varying dates, at the same time. And this is, in point of fact, what seems, in the present state of our knowledge to have been, most probably, the case.

After the prologue, here discussed, the story turns into a fairy tale, quite well told, and very edifying, and full of subtle humour. The manner in which the gods, even the highest, give themselves away, must have been quite satisfactory to the adherents of the new doctrine, and is quite on a par with the famous passage in the Kevaddha 3. Just as the supreme being of the priestly speculation is there raised to the highest pinnacle of power and glory that words are able to express, only to be then described as confessing ignorance; so here, after his imposing entry into the Council Hall of the gods, he materializes himself into the form of a Gandharva only to

chic propagate among them the new gospel. Just previously the

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gods have been rejoiced to find that adherents of the new Teacher, who have died and been reborn among them, outshine them all in radiance and glory; and Sakka, the king of the gods, has voiced their satisfaction in a hymn of praise to the Teacher, and his doctrine of the reign((not of the gods but) of Law L

The irony of it all falls rather flat now. Brahmâ and Sakka are mere names to us, void of vitality or power. So confident are we that there are no beings in the universe, worth considering, except human beings, that the whole story seems simply absurd; and so strange to us is a narrative composed, not to be read, but to be recited, that however clearly the necessity for them is explained, the repetitions continue to jar upon our sense of literary fitness.

It was far different then. Having no books (in our sense of the word) they liked and looked for the repetitions. The mixture of irony and earnestness appealed to their literary

taste. And they all accepted as a matter of course the existence of gods and fairies, and ethereal beings of varied character and radiance. We cannot therefore be surprised to find that this group of Suttantas all directed to the one purpose of persuading the people that the gods were on the side of the reforming party, attained a lasting success. Even when the Buddhists, some centuries after the death of the Buddha, began to write in Sanskrit, they still quoted from these Pâli mythological legends, and from those passages of them which seem to our taste the most bizarre1.

There are two expressions in our Suttanta which merit a longer discussion than is possible in a note. These are kenacid eva karaniyena and

yâvad eva manussehi suppakâsitam

In each case the question arises whether the d is to be taken as added for euphony, or whether it should be taken with the following eva to form the word deva, god.

Buddhaghosa comments on the former phrase when it occurs in the Assalâyana (M. II, 147). There certain brahmins are said to be staying at Sâvatthi kenacid eva karanîyena (as Sir Robert Chalmers prints it), that is, 'on some business or other.' Prof. Pischel, however, in the separate edition he published at Chemnitz in 1880, prints it kena ci devakaraniyena, that is 'on some matter connected with worship of the gods.' The Papañca Sûdanî has kenacidevâti yaññûpâ sanâdinâ aniyamita-kiccena, ' on some undetermined matter such as sacrifice, worship, or so on.' This is an explanation of the meaning of the phrase as found in that connexion, and not a direction as to whether the phrase contains the word deva or the word eva. The gloss would be equally correct in either case. In our Suttanta the phrase occurs in II where Jana-vasabha is sent by one god to another kenacid eva karanîyena. Here it seems quite unnecessary to mention that he was sent on business referring to the god,' and the phrase may well be taken in its ordinary sense as, for instance, in the Mahâ-parinibbâna (D. II, 147). There Ânanda goes to the Mallas to announce the impending

death of the Buddha and finds them assembled in their Mote Hall kenacid eva karanîyena-clearly, in this connexion ' on some business or other.' (Cp. D. II, 159.) It may, indeed, be objected that the clansmen may have been consulting about some business 'connected with the gods.' That seems, how

1 See further the remarks in Buddhist India,' pp. 219 ff.

ever, unlikely. If really meant it would have been expressed otherwise. And frankly it is most doubtful whether the suggested phrase deva-karanîya (god-business' is really a good Pâli idiom at all. The best conclusion therefore, in the present state of our knowledge of that idiom, is that the right reading is eva, not deva, and that the phrase always means on some business or other.'

The other case is more difficult. The phrase occurs at the end of the epilogue to our Suttanta. It recurs in the Sampasâdaniya (D. III, 122). In both places it is evidently an excerpt from the stock episode found in the Anguttara IV, 308 ff., the Samyutta V, 258 ff., and the Udâna VI, 1, and incorporated in the Mahâ-parinibbâna (D. II, 102 ff., see especially pp. 106, 114). There the Buddha refuses to die till certain things have been accomplished. These are (1) until the Bhikkhus shall have become true hearers, wise and well trained, &c.-(2) until they, having themselves learned the doctrine, shall be able to tell others of it, preach it, expound it, &c.-(3) until they shall be able, by the truth, to refute vain doctrine-(4) until the way of good life shall have become wide spread and popular-(5) yavad eva manussehi pakâsitam, apparently meaning until it shall have been well proclaimed among men' (or perhaps 'by men' as Prof. Windisch renders, Mara and Buddha, p. 72). The same set of conditions is then repeated, reading for 'Bhikkhus,' 'Bhikkhunis,' 'laymen' and 'lay women' respectively. The conditions, it will be observed, are all of them conditions to obtain among humans. Nevertheless the Divyâvadâna (p. 202), in Sanskritising (or re-writing) the passage, doubles the d (yavad devamanushyebhyah), and so introduces the godsuntil it shall have been well proclaimed among (or by) gods and men.' Later tradition does the same. Buddhaghosa brings in the gods in his comments on the Digha passages. But the question is, did the version of the episode, as originally composed, have this meaning? The context is

against it. Another constantly repeated phrase about the reform being 'for the good and the weal and the gain of gods and men,' is, as Dr. Estlin Carpenter suggests to me, in its favour. But it may be precisely the haunting memory of that phrase that influenced the author of the version included in the Divyâvadána, and also Buddhaghosa. When once the gods got in, it would be most difficult to dislodge them. There the matter must, for the present, be left.

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[XVIII. JANA-VASABHA SUTTANTA.

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1. [200] The Exalted One was once staying in Nâdika, at the Brick House. Now at that time the Exalted One was wont to make declarations as to the rebirths of such followers (of the doctrine) as had passed away in death among the tribes round about on every side-among the Kâsis and Kosalans, the Vajjians and Mallas, the Chetis and Vamsas, the Kurus and Panchâlas, the Macchas and Sûrasenas-saying: 'Such an one has been reborn there, and such an one there 2. From Nâdika upwards of fifty adherents, who passed away in death after having completely destroyed the Five Bonds that bind people to this world, have become inheritors of the highest heavens, there to pass utterly away, thence never to return. Full ninety adherents in Nâdika, who have passed away in death after having completely destroyed the Three Bonds, and reduced to a minimum lust ill-will and delusion, have become Once-returners, and on their first return to this world shall make an end of pain. Over five hundred adherents of Nâdika, who have passed away in death after having completely destroyed the Three Bonds, and become converted, cannot be reborn in any state of woe, but are assured of attaining to the Insight (of the higher stages of the Path).'

2. [201] Now the adherents at Nâdika, when they heard these revelations, were pleased, gladdened and filled with joy and happiness at these solutions by the

1 See above pp. 97 ff., and the notes there.

2 For the details see above, p. 98, § 7.

3 See 'Dialogues,' I, pp. 200, 201.

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