Indian Antiquary Vol 41

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 43

FEBRUARY, 1912.]
ASOKA'S BHABRA EDICT
39
The foregoing considerations justify us in equating Aliyarasani with the chattaro ariyarannsd (or better, with the chattari ariyaramsdni, as the Palisambhidd calls them) rather than with the « 18a ari yavdsá. But this justification is reinforced by a weighty consideration, and that is the i aportance and distinction, which attached to the ariyaramsá text, or to the substance of that text, at so early & time as the reduction of the Patisambhidd, and which the text continued to enjoy Jown to the time of Buddhaghosha (say A. D. 410) and his successors. In the Patisambhida (1.84), these four ariyavainsdni are set down with the four satipatthand and other famous fours. Baddhaghosha, in his Anguttara commentary, devotes almost ten full pages (521 to 581) to this sita, and begins (p. 521, 1. 34) by calling it the Great Ariyavansa-suttanta and saying that it 8 preached by Buddha himself to an assembly of forty thousand monks at Jetavana.
Buddbaghosha had previously made several allusions to the Ariyaramsd in his Visuddhimagga. * The Sayâ u Pye" bas published the text of this work, and also Dhammapala's commentary thereon, a the P. G. Mundyne Press (Rangoon, 1909-1910), and to his editions the following citations yler. Thus at the very beginning of the chapter on the Pure Practices or dhutaigas, ho gives 11 advantages of following them, and among them this, that a man gets a firm footing in the
yaransit (text, p. 50, 1. 7). The commentary (p. 82, 1. 23) reflects distinctly the phraseology
the Anguttara text. At p. 54, 1. 5, the text says that simplicity of clothing puts a man in the Airt ariyaransa, according thus with the text of the Anguttara passage. At p. 56, 1. 11, the text
s'a little story beginning, “In a certain village there was preaching on the Ariyavarisd" (80 tho. comm., p. 88, 1, 1). And at the end of the exquisite story translated in H. C. Warren's 1ddhism (p. 434) under the Biblical title, and hate not his father and mother, p. 79, 1. 15 of the to it, the admiring mother is represented as saying that the Buddha must have had in mind just Stha moak as her son when he preacbed the Aryavannía course of conduct. Without implying that Buddhaghosha wrote the Játuka commentary, we may add that this same famous course of conduct is mentioned as something which Upananda preached but did not practice in Jataka, Vol. 2, p. 141, and Vol. 3, p. 332. In short, the evidence is ample to show that the text about the four a avasd was one of great distinction and very wide notoriety.
Number 3, Anágata-thayani. Four suttas with this name appear in the Anguttara-nikáya, Darnely, sultas 77-80 of Vol. 3, pages 100-110. The first of these (No. 77) is a series of admonitime to lead a heedful and strenuous life in view of five possible kinds of danger, and is meant for the monk who is a forest hermit. The second (No. 78) is a series of admonitions to the game effect, in view of the coming on of age, disease, famine, war, or schism. The third (No. 79 ) is & prophecy of the dangers to arise in the future, with suitable admonitions to the monks to be on their guard and strive earnestly to avoid them. One of these dangers is that incompetent monks might atternpt to teach the higher doctrine (abhidhammakathd),-& strange sutta for Asoka to urge upon the attention of lay sisters. The fourth sutta (No. 80 ) is like the third, except that the dangers to the religion concern luxury in clothing, food, and dwellings and the promiscuous living together of monks and nuns, and so forth. This last danger makes it unsuitable as a discourse to tie laity
Professor Davids picks out third sutta No. 79 ) for identification with Asoka's Andgatabhavani. For the reason indicated in the previous paragraph, this seems to me wrong. And the like holds for the fourth. The first sutta (No. 77) is meant for a forest hermit and so I think that it is not intended by the author of the edict. There remains, therefore, only the second.
Vumber 5, Moneya-súte. This, Professor Davids, identifies with the Moneyya-sutta which is found in the Anguttara-nikdya, Vol. 1, p. 273, and (with much less satisfactory detail ) also at Itituitaka number (not page 5 67. The kấya-moneyya and vachi-moneyya are quite in accord with what we expect to find in the edict; but it is not so with the mano-moneyya, which implies attainmente quite beyond the laity.
I would indentify Aboka's Moneya-súte with the Nalaka-sutta (iii. 11 ) of the Sutta-nipdta, pp. 128-134 of Fausboll's edition. Stanzas 1-20 are a mere getting or narrative introduction,