Brief History Of Buddhist Studies In Europe And Maerica

Author(s): J W De Jong
Publisher: J W De Jong

Page 26

THE EASTERN BUDDHIST
interpretation is based upon a careful examination of the Vedic and Brahmanical literature but one finds nothing similar in Kern's book. One observes with some astonishment that his categorical statements have been able to carry away even such a sober-minded and cautious scholar as Barth, who was willing to consider the courtezans as mother-goddesses, the six heretical teachers as the six planets and the rebellion of Devadatta as the struggle of the moon with the sun (Oeuvres de Auguste Barth, I, Paris, 1914, p. 335). However, Barth believed that the legend of the Buddha contains historical elements which had been handed down since the time of the Buddha. Even Senart was willing to admit that historical elements had been connected secondarity with the mythical biography of the Buddha (op. cit., pp. 442-444), but for him the mythical and historical elements belonged to two entirely different traditions. Senart conceded the fact that the Pāli sources were less miraculous than the Lalitavistara but, according to him, this does not guarantee their greater authenticity. On the contrary, this is due to the fact that they have been re-written and simplified. Nevertheless, the mythical elements which have been preserved in the Pāli tradition show that there is no fundamental difference between the Pāli tradition and the Sanskrit sources.
Kern entirely dissolved the historical Buddha in the solar god. Senart and Barth did admit the possibility that reliable information had been handed down concerning the life of the Buddha, but neither of them attempted to collect these data. T. W. Rhys Davids, who in 1877 published his Buddhism, being a sketch of the life and teachings of Gautama the Buddha (I quote from the 14th edition published in 1890), believed that the Pāli texts are much more reliable and complete than the Sanskrit works. He put great reliance on those statements in which they agree. According to him it is possible to discover the historical basis of the legend of the Buddha. On the basis of the Pāli sources, Rhys Davids sketches the life of Gautama. In a chapter on the legend of the Buddha he refers to Senart's theory which he accepts "to a certain modified extent” (p. 190). Rhys Davids believes that the later forms of each episode of Buddha's life) differ chiefly from the former in the way in which they further exaggerate the details of the stories so as to make them more consistent with the imperial wealth and power ascribed to Gautama or his father by the Chakrawarti parallel; or with the belief in Gautama's omniscience and omnipotence” (p. 194).