Kern's introduction is a dating argument, and he is arguing against Burnouf — the man whose authority in this field was then close to absolute. Burnouf had placed the Mahâvaipulya Sûtras, this one among them, later than the simple Sûtras, and later even than those simple Sûtras that speak of people living long after the Buddha. Kern accepts the reasoning and refuses the conclusion, on the ground that it dates the composition and not the material.
The Saddharma-Pundarîka, or Lotus of the True Law — SBE Vol. 21 (trans. H. Kern, 1884)
Open to all
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The translator’s English as printed (Hendrik Kern). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
THE Saddharma-puzdarika is one of the nine Dharmas which are known by the titles of—1. Ash¢asahasrika Pragnaparamita ; 2. Ganda-vyhha; 3. Dasabhimisvara; 4. Samadhi-raga; 5. Lankavatéra; .6. Saddharma-puzdartka ; ¥. Tathagata-guhyaka ; 8. Lalita-vistara; 9. Suvarva-prabhasa.
These nine works, to which divine worship is offered, embrace (to use the words of the first investigator of Nepalese Buddhism’) ‘in the first, an abstract of the philosophy of Buddhism?; ‘in the seventh, a treatise on the esoteric doctrines; and in the seven remaining ones, a full illustration of every point of the ordinary doctrine and discipline, taught in the easy and effective way of example and anecdote, interspersed with occasional instances of dogmatic instruction. With the exception of the first, these works are therefore of a narrative kind; but interwoven with much occasional speculative matter.’
As to the form, it would seem that all the Dharmas may rank as narrative works, which, however, does not exclude in some of them a total difference in style of composition and character. The Lalita-vistara e.g. has the movement of a real epic, the Saddharma-puzdarika has not. The latter bears the character of a dramatic performance, an undeveloped mystery play, in which the chief interlocutor, not the only
' B. H. Hodgson, Essays on the Language, Literature, and Religion of Nepal and Tibet, p. 13; cf. p. 49.
3 As the Perfect Pragia is she who has produced all Tathagatas, the mother of all Bodhisattvas, Pratyekabuddhas, and Disciples (see Cowell and Eggeling, Catalogue of Buddhist Sanskrit Manuscripts, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, New Series, VIII, p. 3), we must infer that the work is chiefly intended to set forth the principia rerum. It begins with chaos (pradh4na or prag#4) ; and hence its place at the commencement of the list. We may, perhaps, best designate it as an abstract of mystic-natural or materialistic philosophy.
x SADDHARMA-PUNDARI{KA.
one, is SAkyamuni, the Lord. It consists of a series of dialogues, brightened by the magic effects of a would-be supernatural scenery. The phantasmagorical parts of the whole are as clearly intended to impress us with the idea of the might and glory of the Buddha, as his speeches are to set forth his all-surpassing wisdom. Some affinity of its technical arrangement with that of the regular Indian drama is visible in the prologue or Nidana, where Mafgusrtf at the end prepares the spectators and auditors—both are the same—for the beginning of the grand drama, by telling them that the Lord is about to awake from his mystic slumber and to display his infinite wisdom and power.
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THE Saddharma-puzdarika is one of the nine Dharmas which are known by the titles of—1. Ash¢asahasrika Pragnaparamita ; 2. Ganda-vyhha; 3. Dasabhimisvara; 4. Samadhi-raga; 5. Lankavatéra; .6. Saddharma-puzdartka ; ¥. Tathagata-guhyaka ; 8. Lalita-vistara; 9. Suvarva-prabhasa.
These nine works, to which divine worship is offered, embrace (to use the words of the first investigator of Nepalese Buddhism’) ‘in the first, an abstract of the philosophy of Buddhism?; ‘in the seventh, a treatise on the esoteric doctrines; and in the seven remaining ones, a full illustration of every point of the ordinary doctrine and discipline, taught in the easy and effective way of example and anecdote, interspersed with occasional instances of dogmatic instruction. With the exception of the first, these works are therefore of a narrative kind; but interwoven with much occasional speculative matter.’
As to the form, it would seem that all the Dharmas may rank as narrative works, which, however, does not exclude in some of them a total difference in style of composition and character. The Lalita-vistara e.g. has the movement of a real epic, the Saddharma-puzdarika has not. The latter bears the character of a dramatic performance, an undeveloped mystery play, in which the chief interlocutor, not the only
' B. H. Hodgson, Essays on the Language, Literature, and Religion of Nepal and Tibet, p. 13; cf. p. 49.
3 As the Perfect Pragia is she who has produced all Tathagatas, the mother of all Bodhisattvas, Pratyekabuddhas, and Disciples (see Cowell and Eggeling, Catalogue of Buddhist Sanskrit Manuscripts, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, New Series, VIII, p. 3), we must infer that the work is chiefly intended to set forth the principia rerum. It begins with chaos (pradh4na or prag#4) ; and hence its place at the commencement of the list. We may, perhaps, best designate it as an abstract of mystic-natural or materialistic philosophy.
x SADDHARMA-PUNDARI{KA.
one, is SAkyamuni, the Lord. It consists of a series of dialogues, brightened by the magic effects of a would-be supernatural scenery. The phantasmagorical parts of the whole are as clearly intended to impress us with the idea of the might and glory of the Buddha, as his speeches are to set forth his all-surpassing wisdom. Some affinity of its technical arrangement with that of the regular Indian drama is visible in the prologue or Nidana, where Mafgusrtf at the end prepares the spectators and auditors—both are the same—for the beginning of the grand drama, by telling them that the Lord is about to awake from his mystic slumber and to display his infinite wisdom and power.
THE PIECE OF EVIDENCE IN THIS INTRODUCTION THAT ANY READER CAN FOLLOW ENTIRE. In the Asoka-Avadâna, Asoka is made to use the word dinâra — the Roman denarius. So the text is later than the coin's arrival from the West in the first century of our era; but Kern draws the sharper inference, that it must be later still, composed "at a still more modern time, when people had forgotten the foreign origin of the coin in question." An author who knew the word was foreign would not have put it in Asoka's mouth. The text is dated not by the loanword but by the author's unselfconsciousness about it.
His own method is comparison, printed in full so it can be checked: he sets the Pali of the Mahâvagga beside the Sanskrit of the Lalita-vistara, passage by passage — the Buddha's hesitation to teach, the meeting with Upaka, Brahmâ Sahampati's departure — and shows the wording differing while the substance holds. The verbal detail is what carries it: the Lalita-vistara's prose preserves ayam dhammo susambudho and nipunam from the Pali, "of such a kind as to exclude all idea of the compiler ... having composed the distichs himself." A common source, not a borrowing in either direction.
What he concludes is narrower than what he could have claimed, and he marks the limit himself: these examples "will suffice to prove that the material of a Mahâvaipulya Sûtra is partly as old as that of any other sacred book of the Buddhists" — the MATERIAL, partly. And he states the cost of losing the argument in the same breath: "Should the Sanskrit text prove to be younger than the Pali text, then we may say that we do not possess the Northern tradition in its original shape." An editor naming what would follow if he is wrong.