624
Even at the time of Fa Hsien's visit to India (c. 400 A.D.) the Vinaya of the Sarvâstivâdin school was preserved orally and not written. See Legge's trans, p. 99.
625
Ang. Nik. IV. 160. 5, Bhikkhû bahussutâ … mâtikâdhârâ monks who carry in memory the indices.
626
Cullavag. XI., XII.
627
Dig. Nik. 1.
628
It is remarkable that this account contemplates five Nikâyas (of which the fifth is believed to be late) but only two Pitakas, the Abhidhamma not being mentioned.
629
It refers to a king Pingalaka, said to have reigned two hundred years after the Buddha's time.
630
Mahâv XI. 3.
631
Mahâv. II. 17.
632
Cullav. IX. 5.
633
The passages are:
634
See J.A. 1916, II. pp. 20,38.
635
For the date see the chapter on Ceylon.
636
S. Lévi gives reasons for thinking that the prohibitions against singing sacred texts (ayataka gîtassara, Cullavag. V. 3) go back to the period when the Vedic accent was a living reality. See J.A. 1915, I. pp. 401 ff.
637
Muséon, 1905, p. 23. Anesaki thinks the text used by Guṇabhadra was in Pali but the Abhayagiri, which had Mahayanist proclivities, may have used Sanskrit texts.
638
Nikâya-Sangrahawa, Fernando, Govt. Record Office, Colombo, 1918.
639
See Mahâyâna-sûtrâlatikâra, xvi. 22 and 75, with Lévi's notes.
640
Cullav. VII. 3.
641
In the first book of the Mahâvagga.
642
Ang. Nik. V. 201 and VI. 40.
643
It may be objected that some Suttas are put into the mouths of the Buddha's disciples and that their words are very like those of the Master. But as a rule they spoke on behalf of him and the object was to make their language as much like his as possible.
644
The Pali anthology known by this name was only one of several called Dhammapada or Udâna which are preserved in the Chinese and Tibetan Canons.
645
The work might also be analyzed as consisting of three old documents (the tract on morality, an account of ancient heresies, and a discourse on spiritual progress) put together with a little connecting matter, and provided with a prologue and epilogue.
646
But in Ceylon there was a decided tendency to rewrite Sinhalese treatises in Pali.
647
Cf. Divyâv. ed. Cowell, p. 37 and Sam. Nik. P.T.S. edition, vol. IV. p. 60.
648
See Takakusu on the Abhidharma literature of the Sarvâstivâdins in the Journ. of the Pali Text Society, 1905, pp. 67-147.