Indian Antiquary Vol 37

SR No.: 032529
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 454
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 18 MB

Page 16

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(JANUARY, 1906.
2. The sentence against Channa ($ $ 12-15). — Of this procedere against Channa, the brahmadanda, the Vinaya, according to the authoritative opinion of M. Oldenberg, knows nothing ; the monks to whom Ananda addresses himself are no better informed, since he is forced to explain it to them. Only the Mahāparinibbūna makes mention of it (VI. 4) and furnishes us with the conversation which Ananda repeats word for word to the bhikṣus of the conclave. (Culla, XI., $ 12.)
This shows, at least, that Ananda did not make the members of the Council chant the integrity of the Mahāparinib bāna ; for he would not have had to repeat to them this injunction of the dead Master,
This shows, to argue a silentio, that the Vinayas, with their Vibhangas, are anterior to the Mahäparinibbana, since they do not speak of the brahmadanda.
3. Failings of Ananda ($ 16). - The recital is finished. The monks charge Ananda with a certain number of faults and Ananda replies as we have seen.
I. - Before entering into the detail of the sins, a few observations are necessary. A. - How Can any charge whatever be brought against Ananda, who is a Arhat ?
" Ananda had already become an impeccable saint, that is, an arhat, and yet he submits to a trial; the assembly calls upon him to do penitence for some wins: Buddhaghoga, in his account of the First Council, has left aside all this episode. Perhaps he thought it would scandalise the faithful to read of the sins of an Arhat, impeccable according to the later dogmas; at any rate, it is a fact that the most ancient accounts have, in spite of their late redaction, preserved the vagueness of the primitive ideas with regard to the saint. We can hardly consider even the fact of the trial as an invention of the legend, and even in the VIIth century, at the place where Ananda was judged, there stood, if we must believe Hiouen-Thsang on this matter, a stūpa in memory of this event.'45
Here are Prof. Oldenberg's remarks on this point : “Does the trial of Ananda allow us to oppose to the definite dogmas concerning the Arhat, the vagueness of the primitive ideas with regard to the saint ? Have we really any reason for believing in this primitive uncertainty ? Everything seems to me to indicate that the "circle of ideas” of ancient Buddhism has endeavoured from its origin to establish the conception of the Impeccable, the Delivered. And the tradition, northern as well as southern, seems to me to be unanimous in guaranteeing this conception as very ancient : the divergences of view concerning the Arhat, which were met with in the later systematic theologians, do not, in my opinion, change anything on this point. But, in fact, it is useless to occupy myself with this problem here: it is sufficient to point out that Ananda becomes Arhat immediately before the operations of the Council. The account emphasises the point that he was not Arhat before. As regards the dukkaga that he has committed, he committed them during the Master's lifetime, before being Arbat. Now, whocver is, in a certain measure, familiar with the statement of the disciplinary proceedings, such as the Vinaya gives them, will see without difficulty that every fault once committed must find its disciplinary Sanction without taking account of the point as to whether the guilty person has in the meantime attained to some degree of spiritual perfection."45
I am not, alas! at home (zu Hause) in the disciplinary proceedings of the Vinaya: I may say, almost without affectation, that I have studied chiefly the eleventh chapter of the Culla. Fortune wills that I find in it an important detail relative to the problem which occupies as we know that Channa, when Ananda informed him of the boycotting" pronounced against him by
11 For other romarks on this episodo, see p. 11 and note 70.
45 Minayoff, Remarches, p. 81. This last phrase revolts M. Olderberg (p. 626). Perhaps Minayeff does not carry credulity as far as Prof. O. believes: we may see here a notable example of his irony. The story of the sins of Ananda bears in itself a character of authenticity: the monument of which the Chinese pilgrim speaks is only a subsidiary proof. Not a few centuries have passed, in fact, between the trial of Ananda and the time of HiouenThsang. But there are many people who believe in the birth of Buddha in the garden of Lumbini on the faith of an inscription of Apoka. Now who will say when the Cakravartin was born under the tree of the olonda ?
" It is well known that the books of Abhidharma (Dhammasangani, Kathāvatthu) distinguish very cloarly between the nirxana which alone is aanhaksia and the arhattua, which is nothing else than the disappearance of the amavaa, of the rāga (vitargatva). The washakyta is saorava or anāmava. See M. Vyut, $ 109, 101, and following. The impeccable is not delivered from the skandhaf.
46 Buidh, Studion, pp. 620-521.