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BUDDHA AND BUDDHISM.
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simple Sútras, although most of them were current in India when visited by the Chinese in the fifth and sixth centuries.
It is, therefore, to the simple Sútras that we are to look for the earliest and least corrupt form in which, according to Buddhist notions, the doctrines of their founder are delivered. M. Burnouf has given us specimens in the Mandhátíi and Kanakavarna Sútras *, portions of a larger work, the Divya - avadána; they record severally the names of Buddha when he was the king Mándhátíi, a name well known in Pauranik fiction, and when, as king Kanakavarna, he gave away to a Bodhisattwa the last morsel of food which a long dronght and famine had left for his sole sustenance. Of course this act of charity was followed by an immediate fall of rain and the return of plenty. To judge from these specimens, the simple Sútras, although the earlier, are not the most interesting of the Buddhist writings, and details which are of more value to the history, if not to the doctrine only, are to be found in the Vaipulya Sútras --constituting the authorities of the Maháyána, the great vehicle, which were the particular objects of Hiuan Tsang's studies and collections. Amongst these we may particularize the Lalita Vistara ---the expansion of the sports [of Buddha); being his life--and in Buddhist belief, his antobiography— having been repeated by himself. The Sanskrit original is not very rare in India, and
* [Introduction à l'histoire du Bouddhisme Indien, p. 74 ff. 90 ff.]
