THIS Suttanta is certainly, in some respects, among the most interesting in the collection; and for the history of the literature is of great importance. The subject is twofold, both necessary points at the time, and both scarcely intelligible, without a little attention, to modern Western minds. Even in the East, and to Buddhists, the story now seems somewhat strange and antiquated. The success of the method of argument here adopted has been so far complete that the need of the argument has ceased, the point of view has changed, and the Suttanta, among the most popular in early times, is now, compared to others dealing with the positive side of the doctrine, considered of minor value. The two points are those of the brahmins and the gods. The method of the argument is not to argue about anything; to accept the opponents' position throughout, and simply to out-flank it by making the gods and the brahmins themselves act and speak as quite good Buddhists, and take for granted the Buddhist position on ethical matters. This is of course, from one point of view, logically absurd. No militant brahmin, in favour of the pecuniary or social advantages allowed to brahmins by birth, would speak or act thus. No god, as he was supposed by his worshippers to be (and he existed only as such), would speak or act thus. But the composer (or composers) of the Govinda knew this quite well. And he is (or they are) scrupulously polite. The actions imputed to the brahmin and the gods, the words put into their mouths, are quite admirable. No one can blame the story-teller that they happen also to be Buddhist. The question as to what the good brahmin ought to be, what a good god ought to do or say, is quietly begged in the most delicate way. On this point -the ethical doctrine-the narrator is thoroughly in earnest; and he no less thoroughly enjoys the irony of the incongruities involved. It is the fashion to label all Buddhist writings, without discrimination, as insufferably dull; and the fashion will be kept up, no doubt, among those who do not see the point of the really very able way in which, sometimes, it is all done. But we may be permitted to appreciate a clever story (even with a moral) in spite of the fact that the story part is a story-all make-believe, none of it historically true. It has been pointed out above (Vol. I, 208), how a brahmin law book, at a time when the increasing respect paid to Wanderers and Bhikkhus threatened loss of prestige and profit to the sacrificing priests, puts into the mouth of Prajapati the ferocious remark that he who praises such people (the wandering teachers, &c.) 'becomes dust and perishes.' The writer hoped (quite in vain as it turned out) to gain acceptance for his view by attributing it to a deity. This polemical device was quite in accord with the literary ethics of the day. The choice of the god has an artistic touch, and the anecdote se non è vero è ben trovato. Quite a number of other instances might be quoted from Indian books of all ages, though not from Pâli works later than the Nikâyas, nor from works written in Ceylon or Burma. And they are found also in other lands and other literatures. The device is peculiar, not to India, but to a certain stage in religious beliefs and literary taste. It is not in reality so good a device as, at first sight, it seems to be. There are many instances, like the one just quoted, where it has altogether failed. As applied here, in the Govinda, the device has failed as regards the brahmins1. Where it has had a measure of success (that is, where the opinion thus fathered on a deity has become more or less an accepted opinion), it probably owes more to its validity, or to its appeal to the feeling of the times, than to the help of the deity invoked. The reader may be reminded that the habit of assuming that the deity is on one's own side, of taking it for granted that He shares one's own opinions, comes out quite clearly in modes of expression in constant use, even by very exalted personages, in the Europe of to-day. Our Suttanta introduces us, in the first scene of the play, to heaven. There the gods rejoice at the increase in their numbers through the appearance, in their midst, of new gods produced by the good Karma of the followers of the new view of life put forward by Gotama. The king of the gods voices their satisfaction in a hymn; and then utters, in eight paragraphs, a eulogy on the Buddha. In scene two the still higher god, Mahâ-brahmâ, appears. He desires to hear the eulogy, which is accordingly repeated for his benefit. He approves of it, and This question has been fully discussed, and the reasons for the failure given, above, Vol. I, pp. 105, 138 ff., and especially 141. adds that the Exalted One had long been as wise as that. In support of this he then tells the story which forms the second act, as it were, in many scenes. Here we have Brahmâ's view (that is, the view of the author or authors of the Govinda) concerning the ideal brahmin. It is really very funny; whether we compare it with the actual brahmin of to-day, or with the brahmin as described in the epics and the law books, or with the brahmin as he probably really was in the Buddha's time. The last must have been in the authors' mind all the time; and the incongruity, though quite courteous, is sufficiently startling. The episode told in Act I, Scenes 1 and 2, has already occurred, nearly word for word, in the Jana-vasabha :— Jana-vasabha 12, 13 = Govinda 2, 3. 14-19= 14-18. The intervening passage (Govinda 4-13) contains Sakka's eulogy. A eulogy is also part of the Jana-vasabha (§§ 22 ff.). But it is there put, at a later stage in the episode, into the mouth of Brahmâ, and deals accordingly with much deeper matters 1. What is the conclusion to be drawn from these facts? They would be explained if the episode had existed in the community before either of these Suttantas had been put into its present shape; and had been so popular that it had been worked up, by different authors, in slightly differing ways. Or the author or authors of either Suttanta might have altered an episode, already incorporated in the other, to harmonize better with the particular lines of his own story. In that case it must be the Govinda version that is the later. In it the eulogy is put into the mouth of Sakka, and altered to suit that divinity, because Brahmâ's speech was wanted for the story to follow. In either case it is evident that, at the time when these Suttantas were put together as we have them, the legendary material current among the community was still in a fluid, unstable, condition, so that it was not only possible,. it was considered quite the proper thing, to add to or alter it." 1 This difference in the mental endowments of the two gods, the one the mere king of the gods, an Indian Zeus; and the other the Great First Cause, the outcome of the hightest speculation-is always carefully observed in the various speeches ascribed, in the early Buddhist texts, to these divinities. See above, p. 175, for another instance. The doctrinal material stands on a different footing. Already in 1877 I ventured to point out the difference (in Buddhism,' pp. 86-7), and the point has since increasingly forced itself upon my notice. The whole story is retold, in a Sanskrit dialect and in different phraseology and order, in the Mahâvastu. The following table will make the degree of the resemblance and difference plain. Mahâ-govinda Suttanta. Govindîya Sutta in Mahâvastu. 198 199 200 201 200 201 201 198 203 202 19-27 Now we do not know exactly when and where Buddhists began to write in Sanskrit, though it was probably in Kashmir some time before the beginning of our era. They did not then translate into Sanskrit any Pâli book. They wrote new books. And the reason for this was twofold. In the first place they had already come to believe things very different from those contained in the canon; they were no longer in full sympathy with it. In the second place, though Pâli was never the vernacular of Kashmir, it was widely known there, and even very probably still used for literary work; translations were therefore not required. This gives a possible explanation of the most astounding Professor Windisch (in Die Composition des Mahâvastu,' Leipzig, 1909, p. 494) supports this view. fact we know about the Mahâvastu. It purports to be the Vinaya (that is, the Rules regulating the outward conduct of the members of the Order), as held by the school of the Lokottara-vâdins. In M. Senart's admirable edition it fills three bulky volumes. There is not, from beginning to end of them, even one single Rule of the Order! No explanation has been given of this extraordinary state of things, though it was pointed out at once on the publication of the edition 1. Prof. Windisch in his able discussion (just above referred to) of the actual contents of the book does not refer to this remarkable omission. The old Vinaya begins with the Sutta Vibhanga, that is, the Rules themselves elucidated by discussion of their origin and meaning. This occupies 615 pages in Oldenberg's editions. Then follow in 660 pages the Khandhakas, twenty-two in number, dealing with various points of Canon Law. At the beginning of these is an Introduction, explaining how the Order arose; and at the end an Appendix, on the Councils. This old Vinaya has never been translated into Sanskrit. The Mahâvastu is based on the Introduction to the Khandhakas, rewritten, added to, enormously expanded, and arranged according to the order of the Pâli Nidâna Kathâ. Now why did the Lokottara-vâdins, in their Vinaya, omit practically the whole of the Vinaya, and confine themselves to rewriting the Introduction to what is only a part of the Vinaya? Why did not they also rewrite the rest? May it be because, when they wrote, the old rules and explanations, with which they did not quarrel in the least, were still well known and used in the original Pâli, or in some closely cognate shape ? 3 It must have been from some such cognate recension, and not from our Pâli text, that the Govinda story was Sanskritised. The differences between the Dîgha and the Mahâvastu are too great to have arisen at one stage. The whole point of the story in the Dîgha is the way in which Brahmâ describes his 1 Rhys Davids, J. R. A. S., 1898, 424. 2 There is a supplementary work, the Parivâra, much shorter, and consisting mainly of what we should now call examination papers. This volume, though most interesting from the point of view of the history of Indian education, presupposes the old Vinaya, and is later. As is well known the Khandhakas come first in Oldenberg's edition, but the order in the MSS. is as above. See for instance Oldenberg's 'Catalogue of the Pâli MSS. in the India Office Library,' J. P. T. S., 1882, p. 59. 3 Compare Oldenberg's remarks on the Chinese translations of Vinaya at the end of his introduction to the Pâli Text. |