.
In the following remarks we shall take chiefly as our guide Professor Max Duncker, who, in his ‘History of Antiquity’, has in the most masterly manner gathered for us the fruits of other men’s labours, and focused the scattered lights which they have thrown upon special departments of inquiry.
__________
• [Editorial Note]: First of all, and just for the record, all six volumes of “The History of Antiquity”, by Prof. Max Duncker, are available for online reading. Viz.:
• “The History of Antiquity”, Volume One
;
from the German of Max Duncker (1811-1886), by Evelyn
Abbott (1843-1901), M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Balliol College, Oxford; 1877, Richard
Bently & Son, London.• “The History of Antiquity”, Volume Two
;
from the German of Max Duncker (1811-1886), by Evelyn
Abbott (1843-1901), M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Balliol College, Oxford; 1879, Richard
Bently & Son, London.• “The History of Antiquity”, Volume Three
;
from the German of Max Duncker (1811-1886), by Evelyn
Abbott (1843-1901), M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Balliol College, Oxford; 1879, Richard
Bently & Son, London.• “The History of Antiquity”, Volume Four
;
from the German of Max Duncker (1811-1886), by Evelyn
Abbott (1843-1901), M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Balliol College, Oxford; 1880, Richard
Bently & Son, London.• “The History of Antiquity”, Volume Five
;
from the German of Max Duncker (1811-1886), by Evelyn
Abbott (1843-1901), M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Balliol College, Oxford; 1881, Richard
Bently & Son, London.• “The History of Antiquity”, Volume Six
;
from the German of Max Duncker (1811-1886), by Evelyn
Abbott (1843-1901), M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Balliol College, Oxford; 1882, Richard
Bently & Son, London.So, rather than avail himself to the Buddhist scriptures themselves the anonymous writer is instead going to “take chiefly” an academically-trained collector’s scattered gatherings from all manner of persons as his “guide” in representing to himself the “earlier condition and fortunes”—plus “some mental conceptions” as well—of the people amongst whom Buddhism rose.
Yet the following is what the learned professor himself has to say, on page vii. of his preface to the English Edition, in March, 1877 (the square-bracketed insertion has been copied-in, from the previous page, for the sake of clarity in communication). Viz.:
__________As the above qualifiers and caveats are typical of that “modern scholarship” approach, first advised on Page 89, then it should go without saying, surely, that considerable circumspection is to be applied when perusing any account of antiquity in order to “represent to ourselves” the “earlier condition and fortunes”—plus “some mental conceptions” as well—of the people amongst whom Buddhism rose.
• [Prof. Max Duncker]: “How to offer in *a general survey* the sum total of *these fragments* —[and more than fragments we do not at present possess, and *never shall possess*, even though we assume that the number of monuments be considerably increased]—of the ancient East is *a problem attended with difficulties* which I have felt at every step in my work. There are *not many corner-stones immovably fixed*; the outlines are *often to be drawn with a wavering pen*; the unavoidable *explanations of the gaps* to be filled up admit of *a variety of opinions*. Hence it is often—only too often—necessary to interrupt the narrative by comments, in order to support *the view taken by the author*, or refute *other views*, or arrive at the conclusion that there is *no sufficient evidence for a final decision*. The best mode of remedying these disagreeable interruptions was first to state the tradition, which is generally closely connected with the peculiar nature of the people whose fortunes it narrates, and if *not actually true*, is nevertheless *characteristic of* the manners and views of the nation, and then to examine *this tradition* in and by itself, and in conjunction with the monuments; to state *the opposite interpretations*; and, finally, to give the results thus obtained. In this way narrative and investigation are combined in such a manner that the reader is enabled to pursue the inquiry. The data and the critical examination of them, and lastly the results obtained, are put before him for *his own decision* ...”. [emphases added]. ~ (Max Duncker, Berlin. March, 1877)
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His work is a monument of patient ingenuity. In the part before us he had to tell the story, extending over two thousand years, of that branch of our own great Aryan race which is specially distinguished from all other branches by its marvellous development of philosophic and religious thought alongside of a total neglect of history.
__________
• [Editorial Note]: Hmm ... his work, in the main
,
is more a monument of dour
vilipendency,
than some “patient ingenuity”
commemorative.Be that as it may, there is nothing uniquely unusual about any “total neglect of history” as such—virtually nothing is known, for just one example out of many, about the Ancient Britons prior to the arrival on those shores of the Romans, in the first century CE, who recorded for posterity their way of life, their customs and traditions, their “philosophic and religious thought” and etcetera—and yet a remarkable amount of detail can be gleaned from the multitudinous Buddhist scriptures about their way of life, their customs and traditions, their “philosophic and religious thought” and etcetera of the peoples of that era (for whom the anonymous writer of this article professes that “large intellectual sympathy” of Page 90) who lived maybe two millennia after that “great” race of peoples, whose story is told in that “part before us”, began fighting their way into the Indian sub-continent.
Incidentally, and so as to put all this into some form of perspective, the equivalent of what the anonymous writer is doing here would be for someone living in the year 3882 CE—two and a half millennia to the future of 1882 CE—to be seeking to understand “the rise of Buddhism” amongst English people circa 1900 CE by examining the accounts of the race of peoples who fought their way into Britain some two thousand years prior (i.e., to be studying the Romans, from circa 50-60 CE onwards, and the “marvellous development” of their “philosophic and religious thought”).
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‘The Indians’, he says, ‘have not written their history, because at a very early period they began to dedicate their lives to the future world[1]’.
__________
• [Editorial Note]: In the passage which follows (from pp. 554-555 of “The History of Antiquity”, Vol. IV by Max Duncker) the above-quoted part-sentence has been highlighted for convenience of locating it in its context. Viz.:
__________It is instructive to recall that the anonymous writer of this article quoted that (highlighted) part-sentence—along with more quotes to follow after of course—as an aid in understanding “the rise of Buddhism” in the country of the High Church of England with an 1880’s ‘modernity’ by means of being able to “represent to ourselves” the “earlier condition and fortunes” and “some mental conceptions of the people amongst whom it rose” in order that from the perusal of “a warmly sympathetic account” the inquirer will rise, he believes, “confirmed in his conviction that the subtlest human reason, the concentrated thought of a nation absorbed beyond all other nations in the religious problem, could never ‘by searching find out God’
• [Prof. Max Duncker]: “Though the Indians were not powerful enough to resist the arms of Islam they did resist its mania for conversion. Heavily as this pressed upon them from time to time, the habit of asceticism, the hope of escaping from the fetters of the soul with the death of the body, enabled them to withstand the fiercest tyranny. Even now the most cowardly Bengalee can die with the most dauntless courage. Thus the Indians were able to maintain their religion, the results of their history and civilisation, their whole intellectual possessions, against their Moslem masters. It is true that all advance was at an end, that the limits were fixed irrevocably, and could not be overstepped; but the mobility of the Indian spirit within these was not suppressed. Indian poetry could develop into artistic lyrics, into the drama, and didactic works; the formal subtlety of the nation laboured with effect in grammar, algebra, and logic. Even if the services of philosophy were mainly extensions, developments, and variations of the old ideas, though theology maintained her supremacy, and put and discussed anew the old questions, by such activity and such labours, the intellectual life of the Indians was preserved from sterility; they have placed the Indians in possession of a considerable literature of the second growth, and maintained unbroken their peculiar civilisation.
The Pharaohs engraved the memorials of their reigns on artificial mountains of stone, in order to preserve their deeds to the most remote future; their subjects chiselled, painted, and wrote the remembrance of their lives in their tombs, in order that no incident that had befallen the dead might be forgotten.
*The Indians have not written their history, because at a very early period they began to dedicate their lives to the future world*, and convinced themselves that the state was nothing and religion everything. If among the Egyptians the name of a man was to live for ever, and his body was to rest to all eternity in its rocky grave, the Indians were tormented with exactly the opposite desire: they wished to attain the end of the individual as quickly as possible, to blot out existence without any return, and destroy the remains of it as completely and rapidly as possible. The Egyptians became painters, builders, masons, and sculptors; the Indians were philosophers, ascetics, interpreters of dreams, mendicants, and poets. The history of the Indians has passed into the acts of gods and saints; it is lost in the chaos in which heaven and earth are confounded. Only at home in heaven, in poetry, in philosophy, and imaginary systems, the Indians had no ethical world on this side the grave, and therefore no achievements of their princes, statesmen, or nations were worth the trouble of recording.
Religion has dominated the life of the Indians more thoroughly than that of almost any other nation ...”
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,
or, in more philosophical phrase, could not even formulate a tolerable account of man’s
relation to the universe”.Yet by reading the paragraphs which come both immediately before and immediately after that quoted part-sentence—in fact even via reading the entire chapter those paragraphs are contained in—the exact opposite to what the anonymous writer believes will transpire takes place.
Golly, even the latter half of that part-sentence—viz.: “The Indians have not written their history, because at a very early period they began to dedicate their lives to the future world, *and convinced themselves that the state was nothing and religion everything*” no less—conveys the exact opposite (inasmuch that “by searching” they did indeed “find out God” such that the (secular) state ‘was nothing’ and ‘religion everything’, or, to put that in a “more philosophical phrase”, they did indeed “formulate a tolerable account of man’s relation to the universe” in that the (material) universe ‘was nothing’ and ‘religion everything’).
It would appear the anonymous writer of this article has shot himself in the foot with this quote from his chosen guide—namely: Professor Max Duncker (1811-1886)—who, in his six-volume “The History of Antiquity” publication, “has in the most masterly manner gathered for us the fruits of other men’s labours” and then “focused the scattered lights which they have thrown upon special departments of inquiry”.
Perhaps the next quote he provides will do the trick?
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‘Neither prince nor people show the least interest in preserving the memory of their actions or fortunes. No other nation has been so late in recording their traditions[2]’.
__________
• [Editorial Note]: In the passage which follows (from pp. 27-28 of “The History of Antiquity”, Vol. IV by Prof. Max Duncker) those above-quoted part-sentences have been highlighted for convenience in locating them in their context. Viz.:
__________It is highly unlikely that “the inquirer” (i.e., that potential apostate whose wavering faith is to be bolstered with the High Church’s “stoutly assert” policy when all else fails), after reading the above, will rise “confirmed in his conviction that the subtlest human reason, the concentrated thought of a nation absorbed beyond all other nations in the religious problem, could never ‘by searching find out God’
• [Prof. Max Duncker]: “We have already examined the earliest date at which the kings who reigned in antiquity in the lower valley of Nile attempted to bring their actions into everlasting remembrance by pictures and writing. The oldest inscription preserved there dates from the period immediately preceding the erection of the great pyramids. The same impulse swayed the rulers of Babylon and Asshur, of whom we possess monuments reaching beyond the year 2000 B.C. The Hebrews also began at a very early time to record the fortunes of their progenitors and their nation. With the Indians the reverse is the case. Here *neither prince nor people show the least interest in preserving the memory of their actions or fortunes. No other nation has been so late in recording their traditions*, and has been content to leave them in so fragmentary a condition. For this reason, fancy is in India more lively, the treasures of poetry are more rich and inexhaustible. Thus it becomes the object of our investigation, from the remains of this poetry, and the wrecks of literature, to ascertain and reconstruct, as far as possible, the history of the Indians. From the first the want of fixed tradition precludes the attempt to establish in detail the course of the history of the Aryan states and their rulers.
Our attempts are essentially limited to the discovery of the stages in the advance of the power of the Aryas in the regions where they first set foot, to the deciphering of the successive steps through which their religious views and intellectual culture were developed. And when we have thus exhumed the buried history of the Indians, we are assisted in determining its periods by the contact of the Indians with their western neighbours, the Persian kingdom, and the Greeks, and by the accounts of western writers on these events.
The oldest evidence of the life of the Aryas, whose immigration into the region of the Indus and settlement there we have been able to fix about 2000 B.C., is given in a collection of prayers and hymns of praise, the Rigveda, i.e. “the knowledge of thanksgiving”. It is a selection or collection of poems and invocations in the possession of the priestly families, of hymns and prayers arising in these families, and sung and preserved by them. In the ten books which make up this collection, the poems of the first book are ascribed to minstrels of various families; in some the minstrel is even named ...”
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,
or, in more philosophical phrase, could not even formulate a tolerable account of
man’s relation to the universe”
as what the learned
professor is referring to, in the section those part-sentences were excerpted from,
is the lack of historical record about events which took place some *1500 years or more*
before the life of the founder of Buddhism *on the opposite side of the sub-continent*.Thus it does seem that the anonymous writer of this article has shot himself in the other foot as well, with this second quote from his chosen “guide”, as there is no way a period some *1500 years or more* before the advent of Buddhism, *on the opposite side of the sub-continent,* will enable him to “represent to ourselves the earlier condition and fortunes and some mental conceptions of the people amongst whom it rose”—so as to aid his understanding of “the rise of Buddhism” in the country of the High Church of England—because “the people amongst whom it rose” were the peoples alive some *1500 years or more* later (during the period 500-400 BCE) and living *on the opposite side of the sub-continent*.
The equivalent for this nineteenth century anonymous writer—were he to be desirous of understanding, say, the 1850’s rise of interest in electromagnetism—would be to go looking into the events of fourth century England for “some mental conceptions of the people amongst whom it rose” and then complain about the paucity of the historical record those fourth century persons kept.
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The history had then to be pieced together out of the ‘remains of poetry and the wreck of literature’, with the aid of such side lights, scanty and obscure, as might be derived from other sources.
__________
• [Editorial Note]: Yet all this while (as has already been mentioned) there is a sufficiency of information in the Buddhist scriptures such as to render all that heroic piecing together “from other sources” unnecessary.
But even so, the anonymous writer of this article is yet to explain just how historical information about “some mental conceptions” of Indian people circa 450 BCE is going to aid his understanding of “the rise of Buddhism” amongst English people circa the 1880s CE (as the former had a mindset alien to the latter then the mindset of latter is such that those “mental conceptions” of the former are similarly alien).
In fact, his whole enterprise, in this regard, has the hall marks of a wild-goose chase.
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Professor Max Duncker relies, it is true, upon Burnouf and other writers {i.e., Prof. Eugène Burnouf, 1801-1852, who began the scientific study of the Pāli language
, studied the
language and literature of the Avesta, the sacred writings of the Zoroastrian
religion, and translated the ninth-century Bhāgavata Purāṇa, which
promotes bhakti (devotion) towards Kṛṣṇa (Krishna), an avatar of
Vishnu, the Preserver—the second member of the Hindu Trimurti, along with Brahma,
the Creator, and Shiva, the Destroyer—into French; Volumes 1-5, 1840-98},
who preceded the recent development of Pâli scholarship, and the fuller knowledge
which in consequence of it we are now obtaining of the actual contents of the
Buddhist sacred literature[3]; but this fact does [...cont’d on Page 93 below...].__________
[1]‘The History of Antiquity’, vol iv. p. 555
.[2]Ibid, p. 27
.[3]The relation of Pâli to Buddha and of the Pâli sacred texts to primitive Buddhism would scarcely interest all readers; but it ought not to be entirely passed over. We therefore introduce here a few remarks upon it, in part extracted and summarised from Dr. Hermann Oldenberg’s Introduction to his edition of ‘The Vinaya Pitaka’, p. xlviii seq
.__________
• [Editorial Note]: As the anonymous writer gives no reason why it “ought not” be entirely passed over—the relation of the Pâli dialect to the sammāsambuddha and of the Pâli buddhavacana to “primitive Buddhism” is entirely irrelevant as an aid in understanding “the rise of Buddhism” in the country of the High Church of England—then his following words have every appearance of being nowt else but paragraph-fillers.
But, then again, his entire thematic output thus far amounts to little other than a pleonastic
endeavour at appearing to have a “large intellectual as
well as emotional sympathy” for a religion other than
his own career-driven and state-sanctioned religion-of-choice.¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
With regard to the contents and the style of representation, the Pâli version has hitherto shown itself to be the most original, if not the original, version of the Buddhist canonical scriptures. In regard to dialect, however, it [...cont’d at the foot of Page 93 below...].
__________
• [Editorial Note]: What Prof. Hermann Oldenberg refers to as “the Pâli version” of the Buddhist scriptures is, in fact, a *sectarian* version stemming mainly from the Sinhalese, the Burmese, and the Siamese Buddhists (the Cambodian and Laotian versions were not available in 1882)—and thus reflecting the buddhistic philosophies of a particular sub-sect (previously known as the Tāmraparnīya/ Tambapaṇṇiya Sect, as in, ‘Those from the Isle of Tambapaṇṇa’, i.e., Ceylon, and which was effectively rebadged as ‘Theravada’ via Resolution № 3 on Page 83 of the Record of Proceedings
adopted by the 1950 “World Fellowship of Buddhists” conference in Colombo) of
the earlier Vibhajjavāda Sect which was itself a sub-sect of the
Sthaviravāda Sect
and which purportedly formed somewhere around 250-150 BCE (the regnal years of
Mahārājā Aśoka were 269-232 BCE)—even though the earliest
archaeological records (which are scanty) of the Burmese and Siamese Buddhists have
been dated to the fifth-sixth centuries CE.Therefore, what he refers to as “the Pâli version” of the Buddhist scriptures is not only the *sectarian* version but that version as depicted according to the dictates of the prolific “Suttanta Commentaries” written in Pāli by Mr. Buddhaghosa of Moraṇḍacetaka—an unawakened/ unenlightened fifth century CE scholiast who allegedly translated them from Sinhalese documents penned by unknown authors—plus his “Visuddhimagga” (‘Path of Perfection’) which has become the orthodox account of the aforesaid *sectarian* buddhistic practice, divided into two broad categories, “samatha” (lit. ‘calm, quietude of heart’) and “vipassanā” (lit. ‘clear seeing’; a.k.a. ‘introspection/ inward vision’), which distinction exists not in the Suttanta Nikāya but in his ‘Visuddhimagga’ commentary.
Thus it is not “the most original, if not the original, version”, as the original version—the chanted Buddhist scriptures prior to the Mahāsāṃghika versus Sthāvirīya schism (with the Sthāvirīya ostensibly being the breakaway sect), some two-hundred years or so before letters, and scriveners to scribe them, became an item on the land-mass known as Bhāratavarṣa back then—are not only no longer extant they have not been existent (i.e., chanted, from rote memoriter) for nigh on two-and-a-half millennia.
The section of the currently-existent Buddhist scriptures which come closest to qualifying as “the most original, if not the original, version” is the Sutta-Nipāta. Viz.:
• [Mr. Robert Chalmers]: “My conclusion is that, while its materials are by no means all of equal antiquity, there is no older book in Buddhist literature than the Sutta-Nipāta, and no earlier corpus of primitive Buddhist doctrine than it contains”. ~ (from p. viii, Preface; “Buddha’s Teachings; being the Sutta-Nipāta or Discourse-Collection”, edited in the Original Pāli text with an English Version facing it by Lord Chalmers; 1932, Oxford University Press, London)Here is an 1874 explanation as to how it is known that “there is no older book” and “no earlier corpus of primitive Buddhist doctrine” than the Sutta-Nipāta. Viz.:
• [Sir Mutu Coomára Swámy]: “It is the belief of the Pandits in Ceylon that the Sutta Nipáta furnishes some of the oldest specimens of Páli. In this respect it may be said to have in some degree a value corresponding to that of the Vedas in Sanskrit. The construction of its sentences or stanzas cannot always be explained by the ordinary rules of Páli grammar. The singular is often used for the plural, both in the case of nouns and verbs; the present tense is substituted for the past, and vice versâ; a singular noun is sometimes connected with a plural verb; the use of cases is often arbitrary; the formation of compound adjectives and participles does not always fall within the known rules; elliptical forms and phrases abound, and would remain inexplicable but for the commentator’s explanations; whilst occasionally a word stands by itself without any previous or past connection, leaving its meaning to be divined by the reader from the general spirit of the message.A notable translator of the Sutta-Nipāta, Mr. Edward Hare (1893-1955)—after first noting in his ‘Preface’ that “undoubtedly the Sutta-Nipāta is an old and important anthology of early Buddhism”—wrote an extensive ‘Afterword’ (pp. 212-217) wherein he observed that “the well-known formulae of the four Nikaya are nearly all omitted” in that anthology. Viz.:
There are available in the island two commentaries on this work. The one is in Páli, and is called Paramattha Jotiká, the author of which was the renowned Buddhaghosa {i.e., Mr. Buddhaghosa of Moraṇḍacetaka, of earlier mention, the unawakened/ unenlightened fifth century CE scholiast}, the annotator of the Dhammapada and other works of the Buddhistic canon. The other is a Sinhalese commentary, or “Sanné”, as it is termed, for a part of this work, chiefly for the Suttas in the beginning. It is supposed to be about six or seven hundred years old, and its author’s name is not quite patent. The style of language is rather obscure. Between the Páli Aṭṭhakathá and the Sinhalese Sanné, the Ceylonese give the preference to the latter as more trustworthy. Evidently the Suttas to which it refers were those which were held in the greatest estimation by the Sinhalese ...”. ~ (from pp. xix-xx, Introduction; “Sutta Nipáta or, Dialogues and Discourses of Gotama Buddha”, translated from the Páli, with Introduction and Notes, by Sir Mutu Coomára Swámy; 1874, Trübner & Co., London).
• [Mr. Edward Hare]: “The well-known formulae of the four Nikayas are nearly all omitted in the Sutta-Nipāta. I list some of them:—Put succinctly, the anonymous writer, in pursuing a will-o’-the-wisp, is on a hiding to nowhere.
• The Path or Way as eightfold, aṭṭhaṅgikamagga.
• The four truths: (except at 724-27 from SN. & It.),
• The three refuges.
• The three gems: (except in the Ratana sutta from Khuddakapāṭha).
• The three signs, aniccaṃ, dukkhaṃ, anattā.
• The four paths and fruits: (but see v. 227 of the Ratana sutta).
• The five khandhas.
• The five (or six) super-knowledges, ahhiññā.
• The four, eight (or nine) jhānic abidings.
There are moreover no references to nuns, as Chalmers has pointed out. One may well ask: why these omissions? Is it because metre did not permit their inclusion, or was the original teaching free of them? If the latter, have we in the Sutta-Nipata perhaps some of the pith (‘sāra’) of the Master's teaching? ”. ~ (page 216, “Woven Cadences of Early Buddhists”, translated by E. M. Hare; 1945, Oxford University Press, London)
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[...Cont’d from Page 92. Professor Max Duncker relies, it is true, upon Burnouf and other writers ... but this fact does] not detract from the general accuracy of the picture which he draws of the state of society in which Buddhism took its rise, nor as a matter of fact do we find him very far wrong in his account of early Buddhism, when we check his statements by comparison with those of later authorities.
__________
• [Editorial Note]: It is important to comprehend that “his account of early Buddhism”—just like “those of later authorities”—is based on/ dependent on/ derived from the *sectarian* “account of early Buddhism” devised by the unenlightened/ unawakened scholiast Mr. Buddhaghosa of Moraṇḍacetaka and the unnamed/ unknown creators of the *sectarian* Abhidhamma of the Sinhalese, the Burmese, and the Siamese Buddhists.
Put succinctly: No Abhidhammic and/or Commentarial concepts, such as the ‘Trikaya Theory’
,
for instance, were ever uttered by the sammāsambuddha
at any time or at any place
and do not belong in the buddhavacana
in any way, shape, or form.The only way to find out about “early Buddhism” is to read the Buddhist scriptures in their Pāli form—and even then compare them with the Sanskrit and Chinese versions so as to ascertain what parts are later additions and which parts have been elided—having first put aside any preconceived impressions formed from all the *sectarian* versions being promulgated and promoted via the printed word in English, French, and German, in the main, by academic translators.
Be duly warned: being based on all these *sectarian* versions even some of the words, expressions and concepts delineated in the Pāli dictionaries—and the meanings ascribed to them through being based upon and/or guided by the by the various latter-day commentaries—are corrupted (the Pāli word ‘dukkha’ being an obvious and outstanding example of such corruption as what it actually denotes is critical to comprehending the ‘buddhavacana’
in its totality).¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
The chief point in which a difference may be seen—and it is one that we shall do well to note—is that he does not appreciate at its full value the extraordinary excellence of the practical ethics which are interwoven with Buddhism.
__________
• [Editorial Note]: This latest accolade-without-substance brings these veiled references to some yet-to-be-disclosed “fruitful revelations” to a total of three so far.
Viz.:
1. “[Buddhism’s] marvellous insight into moral truth” (page 89);
2. “the intrinsic excellence and the missionary spirit of Buddhism” (page 90);
3. “the extraordinary excellence of the practical ethics” (page 93).
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It will be convenient to follow Professor Max Duncker in designating the Aryan population of India by the term Aryas.
__________
• [Editorial Note]: This particular term from the ṚgVeda—meaning “Noblesse”, in French, “Aristocrat”, in English, “Patrician”, in Latin—is variously spelt ‘ariya’, ‘ayira’ and ‘ayya’, in Pāli; ‘ārya’ in Vedic and Sanskrit; and “Aryan”, in English. The Pāli ‘anariya’ means “not ariyan, ignoble, undignified, low, common, uncultured” according to the Pali Text Society Pali-English Dictionary.
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The Aryas entered India from the north-west, and occupied at first the valley of the Indus and its tributary streams. The earliest historical notice from which their presence there can be inferred is the brief but significant mention in the Bible (1 Kings ix. 26-28, and x. 11, 12, and 22) of the nautical enterprise undertaken by King Solomon in conjunction with the Phoenician king of Tyre. The expedition sailed from Elath at the head of the eastern arm of the Red Sea, and returned after an absence of three years, bringing gold, silver, precious stones, ivory, apes, peacocks, and ‘almug’ ...cont’d on Page 94 below].
__________
[...cont’d from the footnote of Page 92 above;...In regard to dialect, however, it]... certainly differs from the original text. The fundamental constituent parts of the original text were undoubtedly fixed in the kingdom of Mâgadha, on the central Ganges, and in the Mâgadhi language; but Pâli is, as undoubtedly, not identical with Mâgadhi. There is not the smallest room, Dr. Oldenberg says, for doubt on the latter point, in regard to which, therefore, Professor Max Duncker must be in error in asserting their identity. (“History of Antiquity”, vol. iv. p. 285
).__________
• [Editorial Note]: Hmm ... truisms can be so trite at times (Pāli is, of course, not “identical” with Māgadhī else it would be called ‘Māgadhī’ and not “Pāli”).
Professor Suniti K. Chatterji throws a lot of light on this arcane topic, in his “The Origin and Development of the Bengali Language”
book (modern-day Bengali is a typical descendant of that expansive language
which, under the name of Māgadhī Prakrit, was the vernacular of
north-eastern India for many centuries), as he goes into extensive detail to
show how the sammāsambuddha
spoke Ardha-Māgadhī (a Western Prācya speech which became
ousted from the buddhistic scriptures by its rival, the Midland speech, which
became literary Pāli).Put differently, Western Prācya can be called Ardha-Māgadhī and Eastern Prācya, Māgadhī (as explained in the above mouse-hover tool-tip—the yellow rectangle with the capital ‘I’ for info—in extensive detail).
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Now the Cûlla-Vagga, which is a part of the Vinaya Piṭaka, informs us that Buddha decreed that every one should learn the sacred texts in his own language. Hence, as Dr. Oldenberg infers, at the first spread of Buddhism, the texts were communicated in the different vernacular dialects of different districts, and, consequently, if at that time they had reached Ceylon, from whence we get them, they would have been in the Old Sinhalese.
__________
• [Editorial Note]: First of all, as the earliest dhamma & vinaya “sacred texts” (i.e., the suttas & the ordinances) were rote memoriter chanted with metrical cadence
—chronicles
such as the Mahavamsa state the Sinhalese Tipitaka was not committed to
writing until the first century BCE (with this move away from the previous
tradition of oral preservation described as being motivated by threats to the
sangha from famine, war, and the growing influence of the rival tradition of
the Abhayagiri Vihara)—there
are no “sacred texts”
to infer from or in any other way speculate about.Second, the sammāsambuddha never “decreed” anything of the sort; on the contrary, in Cullavagga Khandaka Five, Chapter Thirty-Three, he prescribed how the buddhavacana
was to be rote-remembered and recited with his own words (‘nirutti’)
and terminology, and, also, forbade those words of his being rendered into
Vedic recitative verse (‘chandaso’).(The first-off-the-block translators made a right royal mess
of that rendering, on pages 149-153,
K.5:33, “Vinaya Texts”, Translated from the Pāli by T. W. Rhys Davids
and Hermann Oldenberg; “Part Three, Kullavagga IV.-XII.”; 1883, At the
Clarendon Press, Oxford).Third, there is no such language as “Pāli”, per se, as that epithet has its origins in commentarial traditions, wherein “the pāli” (in the sense of the line of original text quoted) was distinguished from the line of commentary (“aṭṭhakathā”) which followed it in the manuscript. The accomplished translator Mr. Kenneth R. Norman, in his “The Pāḷi Language and the Theravādin Tradition” (1983), suggests its emergence was based on a misunderstanding of the compound “pāli-bhāsa” (‘language of the canon’), with “pāli” being interpreted as the name of a particular language instead of the specific line of words being referred to. He further explains how this usage is made clear by the fact that the word “pāli” sometimes alternates with “tanti” (‘a tendon’, ‘a string’, ‘a sacred text’, ‘a passage in the scriptures’), and, moreover, advises of sufficient evidence to suggest this misunderstanding occurred several centuries ago.
Fourth, as both Māgadhi and Pāli are classified as Prakrit dialectal languages
—Prakrit,
that is, as in any of the vernacular Indic languages of north and central
India (as distinguished from Sanskrit) recorded from the third century BCE to
the fourth century CE—the teasing-out of which vernacular dialect might have
preceded another is largely a matter of scholarly conjecture.Fifth, despite clear and unequivocal textual evidence, as to which language the sammāsambuddha actually spoke, buddhistic lore and legend has it he adapted his language choice to whatever form of Prakrit his interlocutors were most familiar with, and the editors
of the Encyclopaedia Britannica baldly assert, as if it were a factual
statement, that [quote]: “Pāli’s use as a
Buddhist canonical language came about because
*the Buddha opposed the use of Sanskrit, a learned language, as a vehicle
for his teachings and encouraged his followers to use vernacular dialects*.
In time, his orally transmitted sayings spread through India to Sri Lanka
(circa third century BCE), where they were written down in Pāli (first
century BCE), a literary language of rather mixed vernacular origins”.
[emphasis added].He said no such thing, of course, and the ultimate blame for this furphy can be sheeted home to none other than ... (drum-roll, please, maestro) ... Prof. Thomas Rhys Davids and/or Prof. Hermann Oldenberg.
To explain: the fifth-century scholiast, Mr. Buddhaghosa of Moraṇḍacetaka, wrote, “chandaso āropemā ti vedaṃ viya sakkaṭabhāsāya vācanāmaggaṃ āropema” (‘may we render it into the way of recitation of honoured speech like the Veda’) and Prof. Rhys Davids and/or Prof. Oldenberg asserted, as a footnote on page 150 in their further above 1883 publication, that “Sakkaṭa is of course Saṃskṛta (i.e. Sanskrit)” (in reference to the first half of the sixth word sakkaṭabhāsāya in the scholiast’s eight-word sentence) and thus set the bandwagon rolling.
Lastly, but not at all least, the Tibetan historian Buton Rinchen Drub (1290-1364) wrote that the Mahāsāṃghikas used Prakrit, the Sarvāstivādins used Sanskrit, the Sthaviras used Paiśācī, and the Saṃmitīya used Apabhraṃśa. Professor Zhihua Yao, of the Hong Kong University, drew attention to this noteworthy item on page nine of his 2012 book “The Buddhist Theory of Self-Cognition”
.Incidentally, in those selected pages Professor Zhihua Yao provides a very useful, and compendious
,
overview and dating of some key buddhistic events.¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
But the Tripitaka was transplanted to Ceylon at a time when the tradition of the holy texts had lost that elasticity which allowed every one to take Buddha’s words and adapt them to his own language. Ceylon, therefore, must have received the sacred traditions in the language of that part of India from which the Tripitaka was brought over to the island, and in this same language—which, consequently, became the sacred language of the Buddhist community in Ceylon—the Sinhalese continued to propagate the tradition. This language is the Pâli.
To what part, then, of India, did the Pâli originally belong, and from whence did it spread to Ceylon?
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• [Editorial Note]: Fortunately, Professor Lance S. Cousins asked that very same question and conducted a thorough review of all the relevant texts and carved-in-stone inscriptions pertaining to the question and published the results of his investigation in a fifty-two page article in 2001. The following paragraphs provide a very succinct summation. Viz.:
• [Professor Lance S. Cousins]: “The question has often been discussed as to the ultimate origin of Pāli. I do not wish to address that here. However, I do wish to consider a related matter. Why is the Pāli Canon in Pāli and not a local language? I believe this question gains greatly in urgency now that it is almost certain that the Dhammaguttakas had a canonical literature in their local Gāndhārī dialect. Why did the Vibhajjavādin school in Ceylon use Pāli and not their local dialect? The natural explanation is that the Sinhalese did so because the texts came to them in that form. But had they come to Ceylon in a closely related form of Prakrit, this would have quite naturally changed to Sinhaḷa Prakrit. It did not. It seems to me that there is one obvious reason for this. What if it came to Ceylon from a country where a Dravidian language was the vernacular tongue?The write-up provided by Yogi Prabodha Jnana and Yogini Abhaya Devi on November 28, 2019, in the further above mouse-hover info tool-tip (the yellow rectangle with the capital “I” for info), provides a wealth of information about modern-day Banavasi (i.e., Vanavāsa), in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh (a state of south-central India on the Bay of Bengal created in 1956 from the Telugu-speaking portions of the states of Hyderabad and Madras (now Tamil Nadu), and taking its name from the indigenous Andhra people). Given the preliminary state of Pāli scholarship in 1879, the rather vague “south of the Vindhya mountains” generic description (below) was a fairly decent attempt on the part of Dr. Oldenberg.
Now there are good reasons why a Buddhist community in a Dravidian country might have preserved the Buddhist scriptures in the Prakrit dialect in which they originally arrived there. The task of translation would obviously be far greater, especially if the Dravidian language in question had not yet come under much Sanskritic influence. That they might have done so is also suggested by the fact that the southernmost inscriptions of Asoka are not translated into any form of Dravidian, indicating that the administrative language of this area was not Dravidian. Instead a dialect from Eastern India is used, identical with or close to that of the capital city of Pāṭaliputra. The contrast with the North-West where local dialects and administrative languages were used is striking. It seems almost certain that the population of the southern parts of the Mauryan empire did in fact speak a Dravidian language at this date, although I suppose one might postulate a ruling class of northern origin that later becomes absorbed.
If this line of thinking is correct, then it seems very plausible to look towards *Vanavāsa in modern Karnataka*
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Following two lines of investigation, historical tradition and the witness of inscriptions, Dr. Oldenberg arrives at the conclusions that the Pâli home was south of the Vindhya mountains {according to Wikipedia, “the Vindhya Range is a complex, discontinuous chain of mountain ridges, hill ranges, highlands and plateau escarpments in west-central India. The Vindhyas have a great significance in Indian mythology and history. Several ancient texts mention the Vindhyas as the southern boundary of the Āryāvarta, the territory of the ancient Indo-Aryan peoples”}, and that the naturalisation of the whole great Buddhist literature in Ceylon was a gradual result of intercourse with the neighbouring continent.
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Page 94.—The Rise of Buddhism.—April.
[...cont’d from the foot of Page 93 above:...bringing gold, silver, precious stones, ivory, apes, peacocks, and ‘almug’...] trees, that is sandal-wood. Now the Hebrew words for ‘apes’, ‘peacocks’, and ‘sandal-wood’ are by origin Sanskrit, while the things denoted, as well as ivory, are products of India, peacocks and sandal-wood being products of no other country. Hence it follows that the Aryas were settled in the land of the Indus before 1,000 B.C. From the mention of gold, which might have been brought from the upper Indus, it is inferred that there was a regular traffic from the inland country to the coast; and from the fact that sandal-wood only flourishes in the tropical land of Malabar, there is a similar inference with regard to traffic with south-western India. These inferences with regard to traffic, combined with the fact mentioned above, that certain products of India are exported under names which the Aryas have given them, imply a long-standing settlement of these tribes.
__________
• [Editorial Note]: The implications and ramifications of the above biblical evidence (i.e., King Solomon and King Hiram, the Phoenician king of Tyre) of commerce and traffic betwixt ‘The Middle East’ and the Indian sub-continent is that occidental knowledge of the oriental way of life—traditions, customs, mores, religious beliefs, spiritual practices, and so on—stretches all the way back to, at the very least, the time of “King Solomon” (circa 970-931 BCE).
(More on this much further below).
Incidentally, it can be quite handy, on occasion, to bear in mind just whom it might be articles such as this one are written for (i.e., what manner of a person typically constituted their intended audience) and in 1907, some thirty-two years after the first issue of the magazine back in October 1875, an editorial which was both retrospective and prospective announced changes then being introduced whilst recognising how [quote] “the majority of those who wish to read the Church Quarterly Review will always be clergy” [unquote]—and how clerical incomes had declined sharply in the last quarter-century—insofar as the proprietors halved the price from 6 shilling to 3 shillings a copy or from £1 to 10 shillings a year to attract subscribers.
In other words, as those “clerical incomes” were evidently quite remunerative—videlicet: £1 in 1907 = £95, or $190, in 2012 currency values; i.e., $47.50 per copy; (update: $290 in 2023; i.e., $72.50 per copy)—these articles qualify as being highbrow
articles.¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Other facts enable us to draw the very probable conclusion that they entered India about 2,000 B.C.
__________
• [Editorial Note]: The anonymous writer is still focused on peoples living 1500 years before Buddhism—and on the opposite side of the sub-continent to “the people amongst whom it rose” (i.e., those peoples alive in the North-eastern area of India during the period 500-400 BCE)—whose “mental conceptions”, as evidenced in the Rigveda, were of a different ilk inasmuch palingenesis (i.e., rebirth/ reincarnation/ metempsychosis/ transmigration) did not feature nor its associated form of determinism (i.e., kamma / karma) and neither did jhāyanta / samādhi (i.e., introversive self-absorption/ mystical trance states).
The religious life of those Aryans living in the North-western area of India was not much different to the religious life of the peoples in Western Persia (e.g., Zend-Avesta)—many of their words, not just a few, are identical—and was essentially similar to Christianity insofar as they believed in one life, and a heavenly after-life (i.e., “Yama’s Realm”), in which religious rites and rituals and ‘prayers’ (conducted by a ‘priestly’ class) were the norm.
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It was while the Aryas were as yet confined to the region of the Panjab, the land of ‘the five rivers’, and the western district of India on the Indus, that the greater number of the songs of the Rig-Veda were composed; and it is from these poems that the character, the political and social arrangements, and the religious conceptions, of the nation in this its first Indian home are to be gathered. There is a very marked contrast between the spirit of healthy vigorous life that breathes in these early poems and that melancholy, that life-weariness, of a later time, when the country about the Ganges had been conquered, and the exciting struggle of the great war for supremacy between different Aryan tribes, or rather for the possession of a district on the central Ganges, had been replaced by a time of comparative peace.
__________
• [Editorial Note]: It is quite revealing of both personality and character that—in the mind of this anonymous writer who speaks for the High Church of England—what he depicts as “the great war for supremacy” equates with “the spirit of healthy vigorous life” and what he depicts as “a time of comparative peace” is equal to “that melancholy, that life-weariness”.
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In the earlier songs, beneath all the differences of detail that separate the early Indic thought from its nearest relative, that of eastern Iran, and still more from that in more distant Aryan nations, we still recognise that full pulse of martial courage, of exultation in battle and in life, with which we are familiar in other early Aryan literature. It is difficult to see in the Bengali of to-day a scion of the same great race to which his conquerors belong; but we recognise the brethren of Hellenes and of Northmen in the men whose minstrels sang of ‘war-chariots and infantry, standard-bearers, bows, spears, swords, axes, and trumpets’.
__________
• [Editorial Note]: Again “exultation in battle” = “exultation in life”. Furthermore, to say that the “full pulse of martial courage” is lacking in “the Bengali of to-day” is to be saying it is lacking in peoples living in India some 2,500 years *after* the rise of Buddhism and “the people amongst whom it rose” from whom he is, purportedly, seeking “some mental conceptions” to aid his understanding of “the rise of Buddhism” amongst people living in England).
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We can almost fancy it is a fellow-tribesman of some of our own fierce ancestors who sings:—“There appears like the lustre of a cloud when the mailed warrior stalks into the heart of the combat ... With the bow may we
1882.—The Rise of Buddhism.—Page 95.
conquer cattle; with the bow may we conquer in the struggle for the mastery, and in the sharp conflicts. ... The bowstring approaches close to the bowman’s ear, as if to speak to or embrace a dear friend. ... Standing on the chariot, the skilful charioteer directs the horses whithersoever he wills. ... The strong-hoofed steeds, rushing on with the chariots, utter shrill neighings; trampling the foe with their hoofs, they crush them, never receding
[1]”.
There cannot be a greater contrast than that between the tumultuous joy in
life and action disclosed in the Rig-Veda and that dreary pessimism, that
dwelling on the dark side of things, which lies at the root of primitive
Buddhism.__________
• [Editorial Note]: Again the anonymous writer equates “trampling the foe with their hoofs, they crush them” with “the tumultuous joy in life and action”.
Be that as it is: this is where that whole charade—the wild-goose chase already alluded to—exposes itself for the travesty it is inasmuch the anonymous writer has not once sought “some mental conceptions” vis-à-vis Buddhism from “the people amongst whom it rose” but has, instead, spent page after page seeking out and extolling what he sees as the virtues of peoples who were alive some *1500 years earlier* and living-out their lives *on the other side of the sub-continent*.
From whence does he obtain those “mental conceptions”, such as are depicted above as “that dreary pessimism” and “that dwelling on the dark side of things” (and, a paragraph before, “that melancholy” and “that life-weariness”) for the people alive in the period *500-400 BCE* and living *on the opposite side of the sub-continent*, then?
Why, he had them with him all along—as in, prepossessions
;
i.e., preconceived impressions formed from all the *sectarian*
versions being promulgated and promoted via the printed word from
academic translators in England, France, and Germany, in the main—and did
not need to go off searching for same at all, in amongst those six volumes,
those academically-trained collector’s scattered gatherings, obtained from
all manner of persons.’Twas a set-up from beginning to end.
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Even the undeniable excellences of Buddhism can only be understood when viewed in the light which this fact throws upon them.
__________
• [Editorial Note]: This latest accolade-without-substance—albeit coupled with an errant “this fact” proviso—brings these veiled references to some yet-to-be-disclosed “fruitful revelations” to a total of four so far (the disclosure is on Page 105).
Viz.:
1. “[Buddhism’s] marvellous insight into moral truth” (page 89);
2. “the intrinsic excellence and the missionary spirit of Buddhism” (page 90);
3. “the extraordinary excellence of the practical ethics” (page 93).
4. “the undeniable excellences of Buddhism” (page 95).
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To sum up, very briefly and broadly, the character of Buddhism, we may perhaps regard it as an attempt, it may be the noblest attempt possible under the circumstances, to provide a support under the sorrows of humanity, and at the same time to elevate and to satisfy the moral sense; to render life more tolerable by the repression of selfishness and the development of sympathy and mutual helpfulness; in short, partly by denial, partly by modification of the dominant spiritual conceptions, partly by the adoption of the most refined ethic, to make the best out of despair, at a time when, to quote Professor Max Duncker’s words, ‘under the most smiling sky, in the midst of a luxuriant vegetation, was enthroned a melancholy, gloomy, monastic view of the absolute corruption of the flesh, the misery of life on earth[2]’
.__________
• [Editorial Note]: Those quoted words “under the most smiling sky, ... &c”, from page 546
in Professor Duncker’s “The History of Antiquity”, Volume Four, refer
to the Brahmans’ purview of life—and not to “the
character of Buddhism” as insinuated by
association above—and it is most unscholarly of the anonymous writer to
present it thusly (and especially so after extolling the virtues of “the
tumultuous joy in life and action” due to “trampling
the foe with their hoofs, they crush them” and
etcetera).Besides which, given that Judea, Jerusalem, et al., was under the yoke of brutal Roman oppression two thousand or so years ago, it could equally be said: “To sum up, very briefly and broadly, the character of Christianity, we [sic] may perhaps regard it as an attempt, it may be the noblest attempt possible under the circumstances, to provide a support under the sorrows of humanity...&c, &c”.
Here is an apt word-of-the-day:
__________
• patronise (tr.v.; patronised, patronising): to behave in an offensively condescending manner toward; (n.): patroniser, patronisation; (adv.): patronisingly. ~ (Webster’s College Dictionary).
• patronise (tr.v.; patronised, patronising, patronises): to treat in a condescending manner, often in showing interest or kindness that is insincere; [e.g.]: “felt she was being patronised by her supervisor”; (n.): patronisation; (adv.): patronisingly. ~ (American Heritage Dictionary).
• patronise (v.): to behave or treat in a condescending way. ~ (Collins English Dictionary).
• patronise (v.): talk down to, look down on, treat as inferior, treat like a child, be lofty with, treat condescendingly; [e.g.]: “a doctor who does not patronise his patients”. ~ (Collins English Thesaurus).
• patronise (v.): to treat in a superciliously indulgent manner; (synonyms): condescend; (informal): high-hat; (idiom): speak down to. ~ (American Heritage Roget’s Thesaurus).
• don’t patronise me (idiom): don’t condescend to me; don’t talk to me as if I were stupid; [e.g.]: “Sales Clerk: ‘Sir, you just need to put your card in the reader there, and then type in your personal identification number when it prompts you to’; Customer: ‘Don’t patronise me, I know how to use one of these!’”. ~ (Farlex Dictionary of Idioms).
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And as the several pages following are also all about the Brahmans/ Brahmanism and not Buddhism as such—meaning it is going to be more of the same, more or less, until the topic eventually returns to its purported aim and purpose—it does appear the anonymous writer could not find anything of substance to fault Buddhism (hence all the focus on non-buddhistic matters).
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__________
• The Rise of Buddhism: Part Four
• An Examen of “The Rise of Buddhism” Contents.
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