Dialogues of the Buddha, Part II — trans. T. W. and C. A. F. Rhys Davids (1910)

17. ' Now I call to mind, Ananda, how in this spot my body had been six times buried. And when I was dwelling here as the righteous king who ruled in righteousness, the lord of the four regions of the earth, the conqueror, the protector of his people, the possessor of the seven royal treasures — that was the seventh time.

' But I behold not any spot, Ananda, in the world of men and gods, nor in the world of Mara, nor in the world of Brahma — no, not among the race of Samaras or Brahmins, of gods or men, — where the Tathagata for the eighth time will lay aside his body V

Thus spake the Exalted One ; and when the Happy One had thus spoken, once again the Teacher said : —

1 How transient are all component things !
Growth is their nature and decay;
They are produced, they are dissolved again ;
To bring them all into subjection — that is bliss V

End of the Maha-Sudassana-Suttanta.

1 The whole of this conversation between the Great King of Glory and the Queen is very much shorter in the Jataka. This may be perhaps partly explained by the narrative style in which the stories are composed — a style incompatible with the repetitions of the Suttas, and confined to the facts of the story.

But I think that no one can read this Suttanta in comparison with the short passage found in the ' Book of the Great Decease ' (above, Chap. V, § 18) without feeling that the latter is the more original of the two, and that the legend had not, when that passage or episode was first composed, attained to its present extended form.

2 On this celebrated verse, see the note at Mahaparinibbana Suttanta VI, 16, where it is put into the mouth of Sakka, the king of the gods. The principal word, sawkhara (states, or things, or phenomena), is discussed in the Introduction to this Suttanta. See the 'Journal of the Pali Text Society' for 1909, and below, p. 248.

INTRODUCTION

TO THE

JANA-VASABHA SUTTANTA.

JUST as the Maha-Sudassana is based on one paragraph nowincorporated in the Book of the Great Decease, and the Sampasadaniya 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 Nadika adherents in the Book of the Great Decease l 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 Nadika are explained. In the Jana-vasabha, for the sake of the story that follows about Bimbisara, 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 Nadika — 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 Nadika paragraph, and indeed the mention of Nadika at all, is out of place. On the supposition that the

1 Digha II, 91-93.

p. 2

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