Indian Antiquary Vol 37

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 19

JANUARY, 1908.]
THE BUDDHIST COUNCILS.
an entire kalpa ;56 they shred a conviction which, in the canon, is attributed to the Mahäsāmghikas and declared heretical. The teaching of the Mahāyānikas on this possibility of prolonging buruan life was also the same.
Prof. Oldenberg observes, with good reason, that the words which we have underlined, in the canon, constitute an inaccuracy. The Kathāratthu condemns, it is true, the above opinion, - the Kathāratthu, the youngest of the books of Abhidhamms, which orthodox tradition only makes go back to Tisaa Moggaliputta, to the Third Council, and which Minayeff himself considers as much later, so that we may, “if we wish," say that the above doctrine is condemned in the canon, but that it is best to be a little more precise. But it is not in the Kathavatthu, it is in the commentary of the Kathavatthru that the Mabāsāmghikas are designated as holding the beresy in question : 57 ** The Kathavatthu informs us concerning the activity of a generation of theologians who hold with the text of the Sattas a relationship analogous to that of the Christian scholastics with the text of the New Testament. The Suttas constitute firm data ; more or less lengthy fragments of them are often quoted; they enjoy an unlimited authority. But it is necessary to interpret them properly and to find a solution when they seen to contradict each other. It is thus that in the passage of the Kathadatthu with which we are concerned there is examined the contradiction between the scriptural datum on the power of prolonging life which the iddhi [magic virtue] procures and that other scriptural datum which declares it impossible that he wbo can grow old should not do so, and that he who is mortal should not die.58 The conclusion is that in fact such a power could not have been attributed to the iddhibala ; and the commentary, rich in exegetic devices, as frequent among the pious Buddhist dialecticians as among their Christian confrères - gets rid of the Scriptural testimony which in truth is perfectly clear, by an (ingenions] distinction between the different meanings of the word kappa." 59
I have made a point of reproducing the whole of this page because it is very happy and very instructive ; but it scarcely modifies the form which must be given to Minayoff's argument.
It is granted that, according to the redactor of the Mahaparinibbana (III. 3, etc.), Buddha attributed to himself, as he attributed to all the possessors of the iddhibalas, the power of "remaining " until the end of the "age." Hence, the opinion of the Elders and of Ananda is in agreement with a text canonical in the highest degree. It is contradicted by the Kathāvatthu, as also by the Milinda. This proves, as Prof. Oldenberg very rightly observes, that from the moment that the Buddhists tried to construct a "dogmatism" they came into collision with sacred texts irreconcilable one with another, or irreconcilable with the theoretical dogmatic views formed or in formation. Bat at what epoch did dogmatic preoccupation become concerned with the question of the virtues conferred by the iddhibala P Very early, in our opinion, for this question, like that of the impeccability of the Arhat, is in close connection with that of Buddha considered as iddhiman; besides, it is connected with the attitude which the community will take up with regard to the Yoga. It seems that orthodoxies must have, or may have, been formed on these points long before the time of the Kathāpatthu.
I easily believe the commentary of the Kathāvatthu when it names on this subject the Mabasamghikas; for the Northern sources attribute to the group of the Mahasanghikas, Lokottaravādins, etc., the opinion that the life of the Buddhas has no limit; As also, that there is nothing "mondane," or, if one prefers, "terrestrial" in them. This doctrine, which exalts the Master and extols the magic virtues, the passage cited from the M. P. S. and our "legend" of the trial of Ananda prove to belong to the oldest tradition, to the tradition of the Elders." The Kathāvatthu and the Milinda deviste from it, and although Buddhaghoga recognises clearly the sectarian views of the Kathāvatthu, -"Buddha," he makes Tigga say, "is Vibhajyavādin," - it is not superfluous to state it in passing. Tho tendency of the " Southern " tradition is, if I may 80 express myself, ouhemerist. Further, it is characterised by great sobriety in that which
16 The Tathagata may remain alive for the lappa or for the remainder of the kappa, for an "age of the world" (many millions of human centuries ), or for the residue remaining of the present "age of the world." See M. P. 8. III. 8, 45, and Milinda, p. 140 = Rhys Davids, I. p. 188. of Buddh: Studien, p. 618. .
56 Ang. II. p. 172. 09 Kappa would here mean the normal doration of haman life. In other words, Buddha would have boosted of the power of soaping premature death (akalamarana). The problem of the akālamarama of the Arhat bas been much discussed. The olovorness of Buddhaghore is therefore not solely his achievement.