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Updated: July 17, 2025
The literary ideas and methods which produced them are illustrated by the Sûtrâlankâra of Aśvaghosha, a collection of edifying tales, many of which use the materials supplied by the Pali Nikâyas and Vinaya but present them in a more effective and artistic form. It was thought a pious task to amplify and embellish the simple narratives handed down by tradition.
These, like Fa-Hsien itself, are all what we might call "clerical" names, appellations given to the parties as monks or sramanas. Dr. However this be, it was about the vinaya works that Fa-Hsien was chiefly concerned. He wanted a good code of the rules for the government of "the Order" in all its internal and external relations.
Then follows a similar account of the Sâmaññaphala sutta and we are told that Ânanda was "questioned through the five Nikâyas." That is no doubt an exaggeration as applied to the time immediately after the Buddha's death, but it is evidence that five Nikâyas were in existence when this chapter was written . Lines of growth are clearly discernible in the Vinaya and Sutta Pitakas.
He had therefore travelled far and come on to Central India. Here, in the mahayana monastery, he found a copy of the Vinaya, containing the Mahasanghika rules, those which were observed in the first Great Council, while Buddha was still in the world. The original copy was handed down in the Jetavana vihara. As to the other eighteen schools, each one has the views and decisions of its own masters.
He remained accordingly in India, and did not return to the land of Han. Fâ-hien, however, whose original purpose had been to secure the introduction of the complete Vinaya rules into the land of Han, returned there alone. ~Fâ-hien's Stay in Champâ and Tâmaliptî~
On the other hand Târanâtha gives us the names of several doctors of the Vinaya who flourished under the Pâla dynasty. These instances show that the older Buddhism was not entirely overwhelmed by Tantrism though perhaps it was kept alive more by pilgrims than by local sentiment.
That is to say: the true state of things is constantly changing, yet it seems as if the state of things were existing, even as does a circle of fire seen when a rope watch is turned round very quickly. Japanese Pilgrims to China. He was well acquainted with the Tripitaka and especially versed in the Vinaya or rules of discipline.
The former is a compendium of doctrine illustrated by quotations from what the author regarded as scripture. He cites about a hundred Mahayanist sutras, refers to the Vinaya and Divyâvadâna but not apparently to the Abhidharma. He mentions no Tantras and not many Dhâraṇîs.
These correspond fairly well with the Pali text but represent another recension and a somewhat different arrangement. We have therefore here fragments of a Sanskrit version which must have been imported to Central Asia from northern India and covers, so far as the fragments permit us to judge, the same ground as the Vinaya and Suttas of the Pali Canon.
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.
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