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 36

INTRODUCTION.
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basket of Vinaya, and the basket of Abhidhamma, and the three subjects of Dhamma (sutta), Vinaya, and Abhidhamma, treated in these baskets. The subjects existed and were taught long before the three baskets were definitely arranged. Dhamma had originally a much wider meaning than Sutta-pitaka. It often means the whole teaching of Buddha; and even when it refers more particularly to the Sutta-pitaka, we know that the Dhamma there taught deals largely with Vinaya and Abhidhamma doctrines. Even the fact that at the First Council, according to the description given in the Kullavagga, the Vinaya and Dhamma only were rehearsed, though proving the absence at that time of the Abhidhamma, as a separate Pitaka, by no means excludes the subject of the Abhidhamma having been taught under the head of Dhamma. In the Mahâkarunâpundarîka-sútra the doctrine of Buddha is divided into Dharma and Vinaya; the Abhidharma is not mentioned. But the same text knows of all the twelve Dharmapravakanâni', the 1. Satra; 2. Geya; 3. Vyâkarana ; 4. Gâthâ; 5. Udâna ; 6. Nidâna ; 7. Avadâna ; 8. Itivrittaka; 9. Gâtaka ; 10. Vaipulya ; 11. Adbhutadharma ; 12. Upadesa ; some of these being decidedly metaphysical.
To my mind nothing shows so well the historical character both of the Kullavagga and of Buddhaghosa in the Introduction to his commentary on the Digha-nikâya, as that the former, in its account of the First Council, should know only of the Vinaya, as rehearsed by Upâli, and the Dhamma, as rehearsed by Ananda, while the much later Buddhaghosa, in his account of the First Council?, divides the Dhamma into two parts, and states that the second part, the Abhidhamma, was rehearsed after the first part, the Dhamma. Between the time of the Kullavagga and the time of Buddhaghosa the Abhidhamma must have assumed its recognised position by the side of Vinaya and Sutta. It must be left to further researches to determine, if possible,
See Academy, August 28, 1880, Division of Buddhist Scriptures.
Oldenberg, Introduction, p. xii; Turnour, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vi, p. 510 seq.
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