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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.orgAcharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
(xii)
meaning of the verse, and believed to have been uttered by Buddha in his intercourse with this disciples, or in preaching to the multitudes that came to hear him. And so here we have a tale for each verse, delivered by Buddha for the benefit of bis disciples, or others. As to the character of these stories, some of them are puerile and nointeresting. But if I mistake not, they are of a description not opposed to the character of the age to wbich they are assigned by the Chinese " Beal's English version is made from the Chinese Fa kheu-pi-u, which is a commentarial selection from the Fa-kheu-king, differing from the Pali commentary by the absence of prosa exegesis.
(iv) Dharmapada quoted in the Mahārastrı.-A whole chapter, riz. the Sahasra varga, containing 24 stanzas, has been quoted in the Mahāvastu (III., pp. 434-36) expressly from a Dharmapada text (" dharmapadeșu sahasravargah," ibill, p. 13+). Besides, in the same work a few consecutive verses, numbering not less than 15, have been cited apparently from the Bhikṣuvarga of the same Dharmapada text. Here we may leave out of consideration the isolated verses which are quoted throughout the Mahāvastu and of which the parallel can be traced in otber copies of the Dhammapada. The Mahāvastu edited by M. Senart professes to be a Mid-land Recension of the first Book of the Vinaya Pitaka and belongs to the Lokottaravāda sect, an off-shoot of the Mabâsarghika.? The language of the Sahasravarga quoted has no claim to be called pure classical Sanskrit but deserves, on the other band, to be just what M. Senart called Mixed Sanskrit. It remains to be seen if this copy of the Dhammapada, so much cherished in the Lokottaravāda or Ekavyavahārika literature, can be identified with any one of the three copies of the Dhammapada (one with 500 verses, another with 750, and another with 900), which were known to the authors of the Fu-kheu-king (3rd cent. A.D.).3
Beal Dhammapada, pp. 25-26.
Malapastu, I., p. 2: "Aryamahitannghikanarå Lokotthravadinin Madhyadeóikinim pithena Vinnya. pitakanitni Mahữyastuye Idi". See also the colopoon at tho opd.
* Beal's Dhammapndn, p. 33.
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