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Mahâvîra And The Buddha
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the master's bidding, in the Samgiti Suttanta of the Digha Nikaya. How are we to discredit this definite tradition recorded in canonical texts?7 That these texts belong to the period immediately after the death of the Buddha, I confess I do not believe, but they far outrank in age the traditions of the dates of the deaths of the Buddha and Mahâvîra, and give us authentic views of the belief held in Buddhist circles at some period considerably before the Christian era. If we are to discredit their account, we must be prepared to accept the consequences, which involve acceptance of a scepticism as to the value of the Buddhist and Indian traditions in general, which is quite inconsistent with the faith placed by Professor Jacobi in the tradition as to the dates of the Nirvanas, or his acceptance of the view that the Kautiliya Arthacastra is the work of a minister of the Emperor Candragupta. If we are on any logical ground to discredit the Buddhist tradition, very strong arguments are necessary, and those adduced seem quite inadequate.
It is contended by Professor Jacobi that the evidence of the three Suttantas is destroyed by the fact that, while all agree in making the occasion of Mahâvîra's death and consequent unrest in his community the cause of the dissertations on the Buddhist tenets, the divergence of the form of argument in the three Suttas shows that cannot represent what the Buddha actually said. The may, of course, be conceded at once by those who believes that we have little or nothing of the ipsissima verba of the Master. The view which seems natural is that the Buddhists believed that there was difficuly in the Jain community on the death of their leader, and that this took place before the Buddha's death, eliciting from him comments, which were probably not preserved in any authentic form, leaving it open for the composers of the Suttantas to present the teachings each in his own way. The essential point is really the different Buddhist authors held the same tradition, which shows that it was a belief handed down by tradition an widely spread in Buddhist circles.
In the second place, Professor Jacobi argues that the account in these Suttantas is contradicted by the account in the Mahaparinibbana Suttanta, the oldest account of the proceedings of the Buddha's last year up to his Nirvana. This text does not refer to any special anxiety of the Buddha as to the fate of his
