In the Notes on this Rule the Sutta-vibhanga discusses the case of some one causing the death of another by per- suading him that suicide is glorious, or that it results in salvation. And in this connection the possibility is con- sidered of these representations being made to the proposed victim, not by word of mouth, and not by a messenger, but by writing.
c He engraves a writing to this effect : " Who so dies, he acquires wealth, or acquires fame, or goes to heaven." By that writing he is guilty of a Dukka/a offence. The other sees the writing, and, determining to die, is filled
1 Aimataro puriso £orikawz katva palayitva bhikkhusu pabbagito hoti. So £a T&rino antepure likhito hoti yattha passitabbo tattha hantabbo 'ti (Maha- vagga I, 43).
2 Sa£e kho Upali lekham sikkheyya (Mahavagga I, 49, 1).
Introduction. Xxx111
with painful feelings. (The writer is) guilty of a Thul-
la.kks.ya, offence. He does die. (The writer is) guilty of a
Para^ika offence1.5
And again, with respect to the injunction addressed to
the Sisters of the Order not to devote themselves to worldly
wisdom (tira^Mna-vi^a), the Vibhahga makes an
exception in favour of learning to write2.
It is evident therefore that writing was in vogue in the time when the Notes on the Rules were put into their present form, that it was made use of for the publication of official announcements, and for the drawing up of written communications in private life ; and that while the know- ledge of the art was a possible source of livelihood, it was not confined to 'clerks/ but was acquired by ordinary persons, and even by women.
But it is a long step from the use of writing for such public or private notifications to the adoption of it for the purpose of recording an extensive and sacred literature : and our texts show —and show, as it seems to us, in an equally indisputable manner — that for this latter purpose writing, however well known, had not yet come into use.
Had the sacred texts been written down and read, books, manuscripts, and the whole activity therewith connected, must have necessarily played a very important part in the daily life of the members of the Buddhist Order. Now the texts of the Vinaya place clearly enough before our eyes the whole of the 'personal property,5 so to speak, of the Buddhist Aram as and Viharas. Every movable thing, down to the smallest and least important domestic utensils, is in some way or other referred to, and its use pointed out ; while the use of other articles, not usually found in the Viharas, is mentioned, and condemned. But nowhere do we find the least trace of any reference to manuscripts;
1 Lekham Mindati yo evaw marati so dhanara va labhati yasam va labhati saggara va ga.kkka.titi. Akkharakkharaya apatti dukkatassa. Lekhara passitva marissamiti dukkham vedanara uppadeti. Apatti thulla^ayassa. Marati. Apatti paragikassa.
2 Anapatti lekhawz pariyapiwati (Bhikkhuni-Patimokkha, Pa&ittiya 49).
XXXIV VINAYA TEXTS FROM THE PALI.
much less of inks, or pens, or styles, or leaves, or other writing materials.
And we do find, on the contrary, passages which show the difficulties which arose every time that the memorial tradition by word of mouth of any of the sacred texts was interrupted, or threatened to be interrupted.
So, for instance, we find the case discussed of no one
Bhikkhu, among all the Brethren dwelling in some par-
ticular place, knowing the Patimokkha. There was nd
other way out of the difficulty, save that of one of the
Bhikkhus being sent out to some neighbouring fraternity,
with the commission there to learn the Patimokkha by
heart, either in its full extent (that is, as we take it, all the
rules being learnt in full) or at least in abstract1.
And again, in a passage already quoted, we hear of the case of an Upasaka, who knows some important Suttanta, and is afraid that the knowledge of it will fade away. So he sends to a fraternity of Bhikkhus, and invites the Brethren to come over to him ; and in that case an ex- ception is made to the Rule forbidding the Brethren to travel in the rainy season, provided only that they do not stay away from home longer than seven days2.
We may quote in this connection a passage of the same tendency from the Anguttara Nikaya, in which, among the circumstances hurtful to the security and the propagation of the Buddhist faith, the possibility is mentioned of the well-instructed Bhikkhus neglecting to take pains to hand on to others the Suttantas which they know. Then, when they have passed away, ' the root of that Suttanta is cut off, and it finds no place of refuge3.'
It is very plain from these last passages that the Bud- dhist community in its earliest days did not think of the
1 Mahavagga II, 17, 5. 6. On this meaning of vittharena and sarakhit- tena see also Mahavagga II, 15, 1. 2.
2 Mahavagga III, 5, 9.
3 .STatukka-Nipata (Phayre MS. vol. i. fol. na) ; and repeated in the Pa#£aka- Nipata (ibid. vol. ii. fol. nah) : Ye te bhikkhu bahussuta agatagama dham- madhara vinayadhara matikadhara te na sakka££am suttantaw parara va&enti tesara a^ayena Minnamulako suttanto hoti aparisararco.
Introduction. Xxxv
possibility of using writing as a means of guarding against such painful accidents. Can this have arisen from any belief that writing the books would have been an irreverent treatment of them? We cannot think that among such a community as that of the Buddhists — who were so ad- vanced in their views that they deliberately adopted the language of the people, and even took no thought, within the ranks of their community, of caste — any such con- sideration would have prevailed. It seems much more probable that, at the date referred to, the art of writing had not been taken advantage of for the purposes of any kind of literature ; but that its use was wholly confined to recording short messages or notes, or private letters, or advertisements of a public character — a result which may well have been due to the want of any practical material on which to engrave the letters that were nevertheless evidently known1.
On the texts above quoted, and the inferences which may fairly be drawn from them, we would base two re- marks. Firstly, that there can be no reasonable ground for doubting the correctness of the ancient tradition pre- served in the well-known verse of the Ceylon Chroniclers, when, speaking of the time of Va//a Gamam, who began to reign 88 B. a, they say,
' The text of the Three Pi/akas, and the Commentary too
thereon, The wise Bhikkhus of former time had handed down by
word of mouth :
The then Bhikkhus, perceiving how all beings do decay,
Meeting together, wrote them in books, that the Dhamma
might last long V
But, secondly, though we must therefore believe that the
1 Compare Bumell, 'Elements of South Indian Palaeography/ p. 10.
2 Dipavarasa XX, 20, 21 ; Mahavarasa, p. 207. As the stanza is common to both works it is taken in all probability, word for word, from the Old Com- mentary in Sirahalese, the Sihala/Makatha, preserved in the Mahavihara in Anuradhapura. See H. Oldenberg's Introduction to his edition of the Dipa- vamsa.
XXXVI VINAYA TEXTS FROM THE PALI.
Vinaya, before it was reduced to writing, was handed down for about three hundred years solely by memory, and that it lived only in the minds of the Vi nay ad ha ra, theBhikkhus £ who were versed in the Vinaya,' we do not think it is at all necessary, or even possible, to impugn the substantial accu- racy of the texts handed down in a manner that seems, to moderns, so unsafe. The Text, as it lies before us, stands so well against all proofs, whether we compare its different parts one with another, or with the little that is yet known of its northern counterparts1, that we are justified in regard- ing these Pali books as in fact the authentic mirror of the old Magadhi text as fixed in the central schools of the most ancient Buddhist Church. That text, in the dialect of Magadha, may have been lost to us, once for all ; and we can scarcely hope, unless some isolated sentences may hereafter be found preserved here and there in Inscriptions, that this loss will ever be, even partially, made good. But we may well be thankful that the faithful zeal and industry of these old monks has preserved for us a translation, in a dialect so nearly allied to the original, and in so perfect and trustworthy a state as the Pali version of the Vinaya still undoubtedly presents.
We trust that the choice we have made from the litera- ture of the Vinaya Pi/aka for insertion in this Collection of Translations from the Sacred Books of the East will be considered to need little justification. As the oldest and in many respects most important material of the Vinaya literature we have included a version of the Patimokkha ; though confining ourselves to the Bhikkhu- Patimokkha,
1 How little this is, is apparent from the fact that Burnouf, who had studied all those that were then accessible, did not even find the words parag-ika and saraghadisesa (Introduction, &c, p. 301). To the Tibetan texts Csoma Korosi has devoted a few pages (' Analysis of the Dulva ' in Asiatic Researches, vol. xx. pp. 45 and foil.) Of the Chinese we have only the brief notices of M. Remusat (Foe Koue Ki, pp. 104 and foil.) and of Mr. Beal (in H. Oldenberg's Introduction to the Vinaya, vol. i. pp. xliv, xlv). The last scholar also men- tions several Vinaya works, of the contents of which however nothing further is known, in his Catalogue of Chinese Buddhist Works now in the India Office Library (pp. 67-71).
INTRODUCTION. XXXVll
as our predecessors, Mr. Dickson and Professor Minayeff, have done before us. We could not consider, even after their labours, that a new translation of this difficult text would be superfluous. And of the younger literature we have confined ourselves to the Khandhakas, both because these books, in their variety, and in the fulness of their con- tents, are better calculated to afford a correct view of the conditions, and the life, of that oldest and most influential of the many monkish orders, the Buddhist Sa//zgha ; and also because the Sutta-vibhanga is little more than an expansion of the Patimokkha, which we have already, for the reasons just stated, determined to include1.
T. W. RHYS DAVIDS.
H. OLDENBERG.
November, 1880.
1 For the Upasampada-kammavak see the passages recurring in the Khandhakas as pointed out above, p. xix.
Additional Note on Mahavagga III, 2, 2 (vassupanayika).
As entering upon Vassa is called vassaw upaga£&£ati or vassal upeti, we believe that upanayika, the final member of the com- pound vassupanayika (entrance upon Vassa), must not be derived from upa-ni, but from upa-i (upan-i). Comp. iSatapatha-Brahma/za II, 3, 2, 2 : ahar-ahar vai Nadb Naishidho Yamaw ra^ana^ dakshi- wata upanayati (Sayawa : upaga^Mati). The preposition upan contained in upan-ayati will be treated of by Professor Joh. Schmidt in the 26th volume of Kuhn's Zeitschrift.
THE PATIMOKKHA.
THE WORDS OF DISBURDENMENT.
Reverence to the Blessed One, the Holy One, the Fully Enlightened One.
NIDANA1.
Introduction.
May the Chapter 2, reverend Sirs, hear me !
To-day is the sacred day (of the full, or new,
moon), the fifteenth day of the half-month 3. If it be
convenient to the Chapter, let the Chapter hold Upo-
satha, let it repeat the Patimokkha. How is it with
respect to the necessary preliminaries to a meeting
of the Order? Let the reverend brethren announce
their purity 4, and I will rehearse the Patimokkha !
We all gladly give ear and do attend 5 !
1 The whole of this Introduction, with the ancient commentary upon it (referred to above, in the Introduction), recurs in the Maha- vagga II, 3, where further notes will be found. The previous chapter in Dickson entitled the Pu^Mvissa^ana is not part of the ancient text of the Patimokkha.
2 Sa/rcgho: of course not the whole Order, but those members then present, spoken of collectively.
3 Uposatho pa#/zaraso. Seev below, Mahavagga, Book II, and especially chap. 14.
4 That is, their freedom from any of those disabilities which are declared below, Book II, to incapacitate a member of the Order from assembling at a formal meeting on the Uposatha day.
5 On sabbe 'va santa compare ubho 'va santa in the nimh Nissaggiya, and the Old Commentary loc. cit.
Whosoever have incurred a fault, let him de-
clare it ! If no fault have been incurred it is meet
to keep silence !
Now, venerable Sirs, it is by your silence, that I
shall know whether you are pure. As to each one
question put there must be an answer, so, in such a
meeting as this, each question is put1 as many as
three times. Then if any Bhikkhu, when it has been
three times put, knowingly omit to declare a fault
incurred, he is guilty of uttering a conscious lie.
Venerable Sirs, the uttering of a deliberate lie has
been declared by the Blessed One to be a condition
hurtful (to spiritual progress) 2. Therefore a fault,
if there be one, should be declared by that Bhikkhu
who remembers it, and desires to be cleansed there-
from. For a fault, when declared, shall be light
to him.