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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.orgAcharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
( 155 )
is lue to a most mechanical multiplication of the stanzas conveying the same sense. Having regard to the fact that the Number-verses cannot be traced in any other canonical text in the form in which they occur in the Dhammapada, a doubt is apt to arise if they were composed in the time of the Buddba. Even supposing that these were composed then, we have reason to believe that their number was far less than what it is in the several recensions of the Dhammapada. This hypotbesis is borne out by the fact that we find one or two verses in the Maou Sambită and the Jaina text which in their present forms are far later than the oldest portions of the Buddhist Nikāvas. Seeing that the Number-verses are mostly intended to contrast the Buddhist practices and principles with the Brabranic rituals, sacrifices, hymn-chanting and poetic composi. tion, their origin cannot be dated farther back than the sophistic period immediately preceding the advent of Buddhism, during which several schools of Wanderers appear to have broken away from the ancient tradition and condemned the Brābmanie system of learning and religious rites ard dogmas with a vehemence perhaps unparalleled in the history of human culture. These revolutionary ideas gathering strength with the progress of time assumed at last a more rational, systematic and compro. mising shape in the teaching of Gotama Buddha, another revoluitionary, perhaps the most powerful of all because of his synthetic genius. The Mum aka and Gotamaka condemnation of the Brahman priests with their elaborate system of sacrifice and mantrus, and the Kesakambala declaration of the unfounded character of the sacrifices found a sáner expression in the Buddha's utterances setting forth the sacrifices as less valued in comparison with the more dignified practices of religion. Thus we read in the Kütadanta-sutta (Digha 1. pp. 143 f. ; Dial. B, II. pp. 180-3): "The sacrifice performed with glee, oil, butter, milk, honey and sngar only is better than that at which living creatures are slaughtered Better than this mode of sacrifice is charity, especially that which is extended to holy and upright men. Better still" is the putting up of monasteries." But better than this is certainly the observance of moral precepts. And the best of all sacrifices is the four-fold meditation 3 One can justly point out this prose discourse as the historical basis of the Number-verses which, in their ultimate analysis, present but a universal idiom, e.g., one in a hundred, one in a thousand, or one in a million.
Seo tho Mundaka and Katha Upanişada. · Digha I. p. 55.
* This is n mere summary of Buddha's viows. Cf. Sauknra's views in the Virekt-rullāmimi, V. 2.
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