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

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 11011 c vero e ben trovato. Quite a number of other instances might be quoted from Indian books of all ages, though not from Pali works later than the Nikayas, 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 brahmins K 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, Maha-brahma, appears. He desires to hear the eulogy, which is accordingly repeated for his benefit. He approves of it, and

1 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 Brahma'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 Brahma, and deals accordingly with much deeper matters l.

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 Brahma'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.a