Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 2Eliot, Charles
Religion
Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 2
Eliot, Charles
Asia -- Religion; Buddhism; Hinduism
In any case no Canon formed in the time of Kanishka can have been
equivalent to the collections of writings accepted to-day in China and
Tibet, for they contain works later than any date which can be
assigned to his reign, as do also the nine sacred books revered in
Nepal. It was agreed among Indian Buddhists that the scriptures were
divided among the three Pitakas or baskets, but we may surmise that
there was no unanimity as to the precise contents of each basket. In
India the need for unanimity in such matters is not felt. The Brahmans
always recognized that the most holy and most jealously preserved
scriptures could exist in various recensions and the Mahabharata shows
how generations of respectful and uncritical hearers may allow
adventitious matter of all sorts to be incorporated in a work.
Something of the same kind happened with the Pitakas. We know that the
Pali recension which we possess was not the only one, for fragments of
a Sanskrit version have been discovered.
There was probably a large floating literature of sutras, often
presenting several recensions of the same document worked up in
different ways. Just as additions were made to the list of Upanishads
up to the middle ages, although the character of the later works was
different from that of the earlier, so new sutras, modern in date and
in tone, were received in the capacious basket. And just as the
Puranas were accepted as sacred books without undermining the
authority of the Vedas, so new Buddhist scriptures superseded without
condemning the old ones. Various Mahayanist schools had their own
versions of the Vinaya which apparently contain the same rules as the
Pali text but also much additional narrative, and Asanga quotes from
works corresponding to the Pali Nikâyas, though his doctrine belongs
to another age.[119] The Abhidharma section of the Pali Canon seems
however to have been peculiar to the Theravâda school. The
Sarvâstivâdin Pitaka of the same name was entirely different and,
judging from the Chinese Canon, the Mahayanists gave the title to
philosophic works by such authors as Asanga and Vasubandhu, some of
which were described as revelations from Maitreya.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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