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Recent Progress in Buddhist Studies 5 Sarvastivadin material must be consulted by all students with as much care as the Pali sources. l Likewise there has been an increase in our information about the Mahasanghikas, from whom the Mahayana developed later on. There is first the translation of the Mahdvastu (" The Great Event") by J. J. Jones, in three volumes (1949 to 1956). S'6nart's edition of this important book, in 1882-1897^ had not contributed overmuch to the appreciation of Btlddhism, because the language of this text is extremely difficult and wearisome. Now, thanks to Dr. Jones, the English reader can study at his leisure this wonderful collection of stories!, legends and discourses, which distinctly and eloquently exhibits the religious, as distinct from the philosophical, and moral, side of Buddhism. Another important document is the Vinaf a of the Mahasanghikas. Most of If is still hidden away in Chinese. In 1946 Hofinger examined eight canonical accounts of the Council of Vaisali (380 B.C.), and came to the conclusion that the one in the Mahasanghika Vinaya is indubitably the oldest of them all. There can be no doubt, therefore, that all students of the first period of Buddhism must henceforth pay equal attention to all the sources, whether Theravadin, Sarvastivadin or Mahasanghika. As Prof. Waldschmidt (1948, II 353) says, "it is not infrequently the (Sanskrit) MaMparinirvanasutra which has probably preserved the original tradition more faithfully, and it has at least the same value as the Pali text* 1 , and he adds (p. 354) that ''both * Northern 1 and * Southern' sources are equally important for ascertaining the oldest tradition 1 '. Similarly J. J. Jones (II p. x) agrees that we "must proceed from the assumption that both Pali and Sanskrit texts preserve as a fixed core a very primitive tradition 11 . "In all texts, irrespective of language, earlier and later strata may be distinguished". Sometimes the Pali is "more original", and sometimes the Mahdvastu. Hofinger (p. 257) expresses the same opinion, i.e. "once again the Pali Canon has come down from the pedestal on which it has stood for so long; it has no more value than the Chinese and Tibetan canonical documents, and occasionally it is even somewhat inferior to them". 1 And that applies not only to the canonical writings, but also to the rich meditation literature of this school, the study of which P. Bemi^ville began in 1954 with his book on Sangharaksha's Yogacardbhutni. 2 i
6 Thirty Years of Buddhist Studies But if all the Scriptures, as we have them, date back no further than the beginning of the Christian era, how can we know anything about the earlier phases? Some of the contents of the Canon must surely be quite early, while others are certainly rather late, and it is often hard to determine the age of the various layers. Many examples show that the Buddhists were quite in the habit of keeping their holy books up-to-date by repeated additions over the centuries. We cannot study their attittide in Ceylon, where all documents representing earlier stages have perished. In the North, however, we sometimes have, thanks to the Chinese translations, successive dateable versions of the same text. A good example is the Suvarnaprabhdsa, which Prof. Nobel 1 has, over the last twenty years, studied with great care. This large Sutra began as a relatively short Confession of Sims, which is now chapter three of the extant Sanskrit version in nineteen chapters. A few centuries later, that had in I-tsing J s (A.D. 700) Sanskrit text grown to thirty-one chapters, and been enriched with numerous dhdramts, and many additional treatises—about the three bodies of the Buddha, the removal of the obstacles which one's own past deeds cause to the spiritual life, the goddess Sarasvati, etc. Likewise, we can compare Dharmaraksha's translation of the Question of Rdstrapdla 2 (270 A.D.) with our Sanskrit text which is at least three centuries later, and find that such passages as the prophecy of the decline of the Samgha, the list of Jatakas, and many of the verses are later additions. I myself have proved a similar process of accretion for the Prajndpdramitd in 8,ooo Lines, 3 and madeUt probable for the Diamond Sutra. 4 We must further bear in mind that the arrangement of the Scriptures, and their division into a Tripitaka is very late, if only because by common consent the third part, i.e. the Abhidharma, took shape only after Asoka's time. Before that there were only the Dharma and Vinaya, with the Dharma divided 1 Sainskrit edition 1937; Tibetan translations 1944 and 1958; German translation from Chinese of I-tsing, 1958. 2 TrsL by J. Ensink, 1952. 3 Bulletin of the London School of Oriental and African Studies, XIV 2, 1952, pp. 251-62. See below pp. 169 sq. * VajraccheMM Prajnapdramitd, 1957, PP- 6~7*
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