Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 1

Also Sakya or Sakka. The Sanskrit form is Śâkya.

297

See among other passages the Ambaṭṭha Sutta of the Dîgha Nikâya in which Ambattha relates how he saw the Sâkyas, old and young, sitting on grand seats in this hall.

298

But in Cullavagga VII. 1 Bhaddiya, a cousin of the Buddha who is described as being the Râjâ at that time, says when thinking of renouncing the world "Wait whilst I hand over the kingdom to my sons and my brothers," which seems to imply that the kingdom was a family possession. Rajja perhaps means Consulship in the Roman sense rather than kingdom.

299

E.g. the Sonadaṇḍa and Kûṭadanta Suttas of the Dîgha Nikâya.

300

Sanskrit Kapilavastu: red place or red earth.

301

Tradition is unanimous that he died in his eightieth year and hitherto it has been generally supposed that this was about 487 B.C., so that he would have been born a little before 560. But Vincent Smith now thinks that he died about 543 B.C. See J.R.A.S. 1918, p. 547. He was certainly contemporary with kings Bimbisâra and Ajâtasattu, dying in the reign of the latter. His date therefore depends on the chronology of the Śaisunâga and Nanda dynasties, for which new data are now available.

302

It was some time before the word came to mean definitely the Buddha. In Udâna 1.5, which is not a very early work, a number of disciples including Devadatta are described as being all Buddhâ.

303

The Chinese translators render this word by Ju-lai (he who has come thus). As they were in touch with the best Indian tradition, this translation seems to prove that Tathâgata is equivalent to Tathâ-âgata not to Tâtha-gata and the meaning must be, he who has come in the proper manner; a holy man who conforms to a type and is one in a series of Buddhas or Jinas.

304

See the article on the neighbouring country of Magadha in Macdonell and Keith's Vedic Index.

305

Cf. the Ratthapâla-sutta.

306

Mahâv. I. 54. 1.

307

Devadûtavagga. Ang. Nik. III. 35.

308

But the story is found in the Mahâpadâna-sutta. See also Winternitz, J.R.A.S. 1911, p. 1146.

309

He mentions that he had three palaces or houses, for the hot, cold and rainy seasons respectively, but this is not necessarily regal for the same words are used of Yasa, the son of a Treasurer (Mahâv. 1. 7. 1) and Anuruddha, a Sâkyan noble (Cullav. VII. 1. 1).

310

In the Sonadaṇḍa-sutta and elsewhere.

311

The Pabbajjâ-sutta.

312

Maj. Nik. Ariyapariyesana-sutta. It is found in substantially the same form in the Mahâsaccaka-sutta and the Bodhirâjakumâra-sutta.

313

The teaching of Alâra Kâlâma led to rebirth in the sphere called akiñcañ-ñâyatanam or the sphere in which nothing at all is specially present to the mind and that of Uddaka Râmaputta to rebirth in the sphere where neither any idea nor the absence of any idea is specially present to the mind. These expressions occur elsewhere (e.g. in the Mahâparinibbâna-sutta) as names of stages in meditation or of incorporeal worlds (arûpabrahmâloka) where those states prevail. Some mysterious utterances of Uddaka are preserved in Sam. Nik. XXXV. 103.

314

Underhill, Introd. to Mysticism, p. 387.

315

Sam. Nik. XXXVI. 19.

316

The Lalita Vistara says Alâra lived at Vesâlî and Uddaka in Magadha.

317

The following account is based on Maj. Nik. suttas 85 and 26. Compare the beginning of the Mahâvagga of the Vinaya.

318

Maj. Nik. 12. See too Dig. Nik. 8.

319

If this discourse is regarded as giving in substance Gotama's own version of his experiences, it need not be supposed to mean much more than that his good angel (in European language) bade him not take his own life. But the argument represented as appealing to him was that if spirits sustained him with supernatural nourishment, entire abstinence from food would be a useless pretence.

320

The remarkable figures known as "fasting Buddhas" in Lahore Museum and elsewhere represent Gotama in this condition and show very plainly the falling in of the belly.

321