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 449

xxxviii THE BOOK OF THE GREAT DECEASE.
the circumstances of his cremation, and the subsequent disputes, between the Mallas and others, for his ashes.'
There is a curious echo here of some of the sections translated below; though each particular item of the summary is really in contradiction with the corresponding part of the Pali book. There is perhaps another Chinese work on the death of Buddha, of the existence of which I have been informed, through the kind intervention of Professor Max Müller, by Mr. Kasa wara. It was translated by Po-fa-tsu between 290 and 306 A. D. It seems to be the same as the first mentioned above, but it contains a good deal of matter not found in the Maha-parinibbâna-Sutta (notably an account of the Râgagaha Council, the mention of which is so conspicuously absent from the Pali work); and it omits many of the sections found in the Pâli. Mr. Kasawara has been kind enough to send me the following details regarding those omissions, and they are of peculiar interest as compared with the table given abovel: Chapters in the Pâli.
Sections wanting in Chinese. ist Chapter
15-18. 3rd Chapter
21-42. 4th Chapter
53-56. 5th Chapter . . 4-6; 16–23; 27-31; 48–51.
6th Chapter . . 27; 48–50. There is no evidence to show that any of the above works are translations of our Sutta, or in any sense the same work. No reliance, in fact, can be placed upon the mere similarity of title in order to show that a Chinese work and an Indian one are really the same: and I regret that attempts should have been made to fix the date of Indian works by the fact that Chinese translations bearing similar titles are said to have been made in a certain period. But the above-mentioned works on the Great Decease will, when published, throw valuable light on the traditions of different, though no doubt later, schools of Buddhist thought; and a detailed comparison would probably throw a very interesting light on the way in which
1 On p. xxxvi.
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