Dhammapada

SR No.: 007674
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Max Muller
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1881
Total Pages: 2540
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 45 MB

Page 1416

I, 1, 2. ADMISSION TO THE ORDER OF BHIKKHUS. 75
2. Then the Blessed One (at the end of these seven days) during the first watch of the night fixed his mind upon the Chain of Causation', in direct and in reverse order: 'From Ignorance? spring the sam
the world the truth he has acquired, the Buddha remains, according to the tradition, during some weeks at Uruvelâ, enjoying the bliss of emancipation.' The Mahâvagga, which contains these legends in their oldest forms, assigns to this stay a period of four times seven days; the later tradition is unanimous in extending it to seven times seven days (Buddhaghosa in the commentary on the Mahâvagga; Gâtaka Atthav, vol. i. p. 77 seq.; Dîpavamsa I, 29, 30; Lalita Vistara, p. 488 seq.; Beal, Romantic Legend, p. 236 seq., &c.)
1 The Chain of Causation, or the doctrine of the twelve nidâ nas (causes of existence), contains, as has often been observed, in a more developed form an answer to the same problem to which the second and third of the four Noble Truths (ariyasakka) also try to give a solution, viz. the problem of the origin and destruction of suffering. The Noble Truths simply reduce the origin of suffering to Thirst, or Desire (Tanhâ), in its threefold form, thirst for pleasure, thirst for existence, thirst for prosperity (see 1, 6, 20). In the system of the twelve nidânas Thirst also has found its place among the causes of suffering, but it is not considered as the immediate cause. Aconcatenation of other categories is inserted between tanhâ and its ultimate effect; and on the other hand, the investigation of causes is carried on further beyond tanhâ. The question is here asked, What does tanhâ come from ? and thus the series of causes and effects is led back to aviggâ (Ignorance), as its deepest root. We may add that the redactors of the Pitakas, who of course could not but observe this parallelity between the second and third ariyasakkas and the system of the twelve nidanas, go so far, in one instance (Anguttara-Nikâya, Tika-Nipâta, fol. ke of the Phayre MS.), as to directly replace, in giving the text of the four ariyasakkas, the second and third of them by the twelve nidanas, in direct and reverse order respectively. Professor Childers has furnished a valuable note on the nidânas; see Colebrooke, Miscellaneous Essays (second edition), II, 453 seq.
In the Sammâditthisuttanta (Magghima-Nikâya, fol. khû of Turnour's MS.) we find the following explanation of what Ignorance is: 'Not to know Suffering, not to know the Cause of suffering,
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