United States or Kenya ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
For collecting the suttas they relied on the testimony of Ânanda and asked him where the Brahmajâla was spoken. He replied "between Râjagaha and Nâlanda at the royal rest-house at Ambalatthika." "Concerning whom was it spoken?" "Suppiya, the wandering ascetic and Brahmadatta the young Brahman."
This incident, called praṇidhâna or the vow to become a Buddha, is frequently represented in the frescoes found in Central Asia. The history of this career is given in the introduction to the Jâtaka and in the late Pali work called the Cariyâ-piṭaka, but the suttas make little reference to the topic.
The Dhammapada, containing the quintessence of Buddhist morality, and the Sutta-nipata, giving teachings of Buddha on religion. Vol. xi. Buddhist Suttas. Religious, moral, and philosophical discourses. Vol. xlix. Buddhist Mahayana Sutras. Vol. xiii. Vinaya Texts.
The Upanishads are less dogmatic and show much less interest in the personality of their sages, but they contain dialogues closely analogous to suttas. Thus about half of the Bṛihad-Âraṇyaka is a philosophic treatise unconnected with any particular name, but in this are set five dialogues in which Yâjñavalkya appears and two others in which Ajâtaśatru and Pravâhaṇa Jaivali are the protagonists.
Similarly I should imagine that the recurring paragraphs about progress in the holy life found in the early Suttas of the Dîgha-Nikâya are an echo of the Buddha's own words, for they bear an impress not only of antiquity but of eloquence and elevation. This does not mean that we have any sermon in the exact form in which Gotama uttered it.
It is probable that in preaching the Buddha used not Pali in the strict sense but the spoken dialect of Magadha , and that this dialect did not differ from Pali more than Scotch or Yorkshire from standard English, and if for other reasons we are satisfied that some of the suttas have preserved the phrases which he employed, we may consider that apart from possible deviations in pronunciation or inflexion they are his ipsissima verba.
The Hinayanists are like those Protestant sects which still profess not to go beyond the Bible. The monks read the Abhidhamma and the laity the Suttas, though perhaps both are disposed to use extracts and compendiums rather than the full ancient texts. Among the Mahayanists the ancient Vinaya and Nikayas exist only as literary curiosities.
Though many suttas are little more than an exposition of some doctrine arranged in mnemonic form, others show eloquence and dramatic skill.
In the suttas the strong side of Hindu memory is brought into play. Of consecutive history there is no question. We have only an introduction giving the names of some characters and localities followed by a discourse. We know from the Vinaya that the monks were expected to exercise themselves in remembering these things, and they are precisely the things that they would get rightly by heart.
The Mahâvagga states that after attaining Buddhahood he sat crosslegged at the foot of the tree for seven days uninterruptedly, enjoying the bliss of emancipation, and while there thought out the chain of causation which is only alluded to in the suttas quoted above. He also sat under three other trees, seven days under each.
Word Of The Day