Vol 10 vol. xi. of the 'Sacred Books of the East, 1881." A few verses are re-translated below. See the Index under Dhamma-pada. 3. Udana. 'Songs of exultation.' Eighty-two short lyrics, supposed to have been uttered by Gautama under strong emotion, at important crises in his life. Each lyric is accompanied by details of the circumstances under which it arose. 4. Iti-vuttaka. One hundred and ten extracts beginning, "Thus it was spoken by the Blessed One." X 5. Sutta-nipata. A collection of 70 didactic poems, all of which have been translated by Prof. Fausböll in his 'Sutta Nipāta,' 1881. 6. Vimana-vatthu. On the celestial mansions. therefore, including all the repetitions,' and all those books which consist of extracts from the others,-contain rather less than twice as many words as are found in our Bible; and a translation of them into English would be about four times as long. Such a literature is by no means unmanageable; but though the untiring genius and self-sacrificing zeal of the late Professor Childers, whose premature death has inflicted so irreparable a loss on Pāli scholarship, gave a new start to Pāli philology, no one in England seems to follow in his steps. Considering the importance of the inquiry, and the ease with which a student in this department can add to the sum of existing knowledge, I venture to express a hope that some of that passionate patience with which older and well-worn studies are pursued may soon be diverted to this most promising field. 1 These are so numerous, that without them the Buddhist Bible is probably even shorter than ours. Thus the whole of the Dhamma-pada and the Sutta-nipata are believed to be taken from other books; and even in the Nikayas whole paragraphs and chapters are repeated under different heads (the Subba Sutta, for instance, contains almost the whole of the Sāmañña-phala Sutta, and a great part of the Brahmajāla Sutta). (Compare Rh. D.'s 'Buddhist Suttas,' pp. xxxiv.-xxxvi.) Being edited for the 7. Petavatthu. On disembodied spirits. II. Niddesa. A commentary ascribed to Ṣāriputra, on 12. Patisambhidā. On the powers of intuitive insight possessed by Buddhist Arahats. 13. Apadāna. Stories about Buddhist Arahats. 14. Buddha-vansa. Short lives of the 24 preceding Buddhas and of Gautama, the historical Buddha. Dr. Morris is editing this work for the Pāli Text Society. 15. Cariya-piṭaka. Short poetical versions of some of the Jātaka stories, illustrating Gautama's virtue in former births. Abhidhamma. I. Dhamma-sangani. On conditions of life in different worlds. This work is being edited for the Pāli Text Society. 2. Vibhanga. Eighteen treatises of various contents. 3. Katha-vatthu. On 1,000 controverted points. 4. Puggala - paññatti. Explanations of common personal qualities. The shortest book of this Piṭaka, consisting of about 10,000 words. 5. Dhatu-kathā. On the Elements, a short book containing about 12,000 words. 6. Yamaka. 'The Pairs,' that is, on apparent contradictions or contrasts. 7. Paṭṭhāna. 'The Book of Origins.' On the causes of existence. 1 See Rh. D.'s 'Hibbert Lectures, 1881,' p. 49. CHAPTER II THE LIFE OF GAUTAMA, DOWN TO THE TIME OF HIS APPEARANCE AS A TEACHER. At the end of the sixth century B.C. those Aryan tribes, sprung from the same stem as our own ancestors, who have preserved for us in their Vedic songs so precious a relic of ancient thought and life, had pushed on beyond the five rivers of the Panjab, and were settled all along the plains far down into the valley of the Ganges. Their progress had been very gradual, and though they had doubtless displaced many of the Dravidian tribes who previously halfoccupied the land, they had also absorbed many of the foreigners into their own social organization as slaves or servants. They had meanwhile given up their nomadic habits; they dwelt in villages, here and there large enough to be called towns; and their chief wealth was in land and agricultural produce, as well as in cattle. They were still divided into clans; but the old democratic spirit which made each householder king and priest in his own family, had long ago yielded to the inroads of class feeling. Their settled life had given rise to customs which had hardened into unwritten laws; and with them, as elsewhere, these early institutions, though most useful, even necessary to society, were often productive of great personal hardship, and always a restraint on individual freedom. The pride of race had put an impassable barrier between the Aryans and the conquered aborigines; the pride of birth had built up another between the chiefs or nobles and the mass of the Aryan people. The superstitious fears of all yielded to the priesthood an unquestioned and profitable supremacy; while the exigences of occupation, and the ties of family had further separated each class into smaller communities, until the whole nation had become gradually bound by an iron system of caste. The old childlike joy in life, so manifest in the Vedas, had died away. The worship of nature had developed or degenerated into the worship of new and less pure divinities. And the Vedic songs themselves, whose freedom was little compatible with the spirit of the age, had faded into an obscurity which did not lessen their value to the priests. The country was politically split up into little principalities, each governed by some petty despot, whose interests were not often the same as those of the community. The inspiriting wars against the enemies of the Aryan people, the infidel deniers of the Aryan gods, had given place to a succession of internecine feuds between the chiefs of neighbouring clans. And in literature, an age of poets had long since made way for an age of commentators and grammarians, who thought that the old poems must have been the work of gods. The simple feeling of awe and wonder at the glorious battles of the storm, and the recurring victories of the sun, had given way before a debasing ritualism; before the growing belief in the efficacy of carefully conducted rites and ceremonies, and charms, and incantations; before the growing fear of the actual power of the stars over the lives and destinies of men; before the growing dependence on dreams, and omens, and divinations. A belief in the existence of a soul was probably universal. And the curious doctrine of transmigration satisfied the unfortunate that their present woes were the result of their own actions in some former birth, and would be avoided in future ones by present liberality to the priests. Every man's position and occupation were decided for him by his birth. There was plenty for all of the few necessaries of life; and the struggles and hopes and grinding poverty of a crowded country with the social arrangements of other times, were quite unknown. The village lands were usually held in common by an irrevocable tenure, and the thoughtless peasantry led, on the whole, quiet and not unhappy lives under the influence of a social despotism irresistible but not unkindly. The priests were mostly well-meaning, well-conducted, ignorant, superstitious, and inflated with a sincere belief in their own divinity; and they inculcated a sense of duty, which tempered the despotism of the petty rājas, while it bound all the community in an equal slavery to the twice-born' Brahmans. A few of them also were really learned, a still smaller number earnestly thoughtful, and there was no little philosophical or sophistical discussion in the schools where the younger priests were trained. The religious use of the Vedas, and the right to sacrifice, were strictly confined to the Brahmans; but |