Story of Nation Buddhist India

SR No.: 035274
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: T W Rhys Davids
Publisher: T Fisher Unwin Ltd
Publication Year: 1916
Total Pages: 356
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 88 MB

Page 193

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Bl’DDHIST INDIA
herefore, as North Indian works. And considering that he knew nothing of the inscriptions, and had only the internal evidence to guide him, this suggestion, though not exactly right, reflects the greatest credit on his literary judgment. Had he started with this view, we should probably have been saved the use of the ambiguous phrases, so suggestive of these works being written in Ceylon, which have had so great an influence in retarding the acceptance of the view that that great pioneer in Buddhist studies came at last, himself, to hold.
Not only ought such phrases to be dropt out of any works, on these subjects, claiming to be scholarly ; but even the phrases “ northern ” and “southern " should be avoided. This seems a pity, for they look so convenient. But the convenience is delusive if they convey a wrong impression. And I venture to assert that most people draw the conclusion that we have two distinct Buddhisms to deal with, one made in Nepal, the other made in Ceylon. Every one now agrees that this is all wrong. What we have is not two, but very many different sorts of Buddhism ; for almost every book gives us a different doctrine.
The more authoritative and ancient books, whether written in Pali or in Buddhist Sanskrit, are none of them either northern or southern. They all, with. out any exception,-if we disregard the absurdly unimportant detail of the place from which our modern copies of them are derived,-claim to belong, and do actually belong, to the Middle Country, as the Indians call it, that is, to the Ganges Valley.