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

1 'Overcome' is literally 'done' (karawiya), but the word evidently has a similar sense to that which ' done ' occasionally has in colloquial English. Upalapana, which I have only met with here, must mean 'humbug, cajolery, diplomacy;' see the use of the verb upa-lapeti, at S. I, 102 ; Vin. II, 119; IV, 139; Jat. II, 266, 267; IV, 56. Sum. Vil. explains it, at some length, as making an alliance, by gifts, with hostile intent, which comes to much the same thing. The root, I think, is If.

2 The word translated ' brethren ' throughout is in the original bhikkhu, a word most difficult to render adequately by any word which would not, to Christians and in Europe, connote something different from the Buddhist idea. A bhikkhu, literally 'beggar,' was a disciple who had joined Gotama's order ; but the word refers to their renunciation of worldly things, rather than to their consequent mendicancy ; and they did not really beg in our modern sense of the word. Hardy has 'priests;' I have elsewhere used 'monks' and sometimes ' beggars ' and ' members of the order.' This last is, I think, the best rendering ; but it is too long for constant repetition, as in this passage, and too complex to be a really good version of bhikkhu. The members of the order were not priests, for they had no priestly powers. They were not monks, for they took no vow of obedience, and could leave the order (and constantly did so and do so still) whenever they chose. They were not beggars, for they had none of the mental and moral qualities associated with that word. ' Brethren ' connotes very much the position in which they stood to one another ; but I wish there were a better word to use in rendering bhikkhu.

III. G

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Hall ; and when he was seated, he addressed the brethren, and said : —

' I will teach you, O mendicants, seven conditions of the welfare of a community. Listen well and attend, and I will speak.'

' Even so, lord,' said the brethren, in assent, to the Exalted One ; and he spake as follows : —

' So long, O mendicants, as the brethren foregather oft, and frequent the formal meetings of their Order — so long as they meet together in concord, and rise in concord, and carry out in concord the duties of the Order — [77] so long as the brethren shall establish nothing that has not been already prescribed, and abrogate nothing that has been already established, and act in accordance with the rules of the Order as now laid down — so long as the brethren honour and esteem and revere and support the elders of experience and long standing, the fathers and leaders of the Order, and hold it a point of duty to hearken to their words — so long as the brethren fall not under the influence of that craving which, springing up within them, would give rise to renewed existence — so long as the brethren delight in a life of solitude — so long as the brethren so train their minds in self-possession that good men among their fellow-disciples shall come to them, and those who have come shall dwell at ease — so long may the brethren be expected, not to decline, but to prosper. So long as these seven conditions shall continue to exist among the brethren, so long as they are well-instructed in these conditions, so long may the brethren be expected not to decline, but to prosper.

7. ' Other seven conditions of welfare will I teach you, O brethren. Listen well, and attend, and I will speak.'