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I, I, 2. ADMISSION TO THE ORDER OF BHIKKHUS. 75
2. Then the Blessed One (at the end of these seven days) during the first watch of the night fixed his mind upon the Chain of Causation1, in direct and in reverse order: 'From Ignorance2 spring the sam
the world the truth he has acquired, the Buddha remains, according to the tradition, during some weeks at Uruvelâ,' enjoying the bliss of emancipation.' The Mahâvagga, which contains these legends in their oldest forms, assigns to this stay a period of four times seven days; the later tradition is unanimous in extending it to seven times seven days (Buddhaghosa in the commentary on the Mahâvagga; Gâtaka Atthav. vol. i. p. 77 seq.; Dîpavamsa I, 29, 30; Lalita Vistara, p. 488 seq.; Beal, Romantic Legend, p. 236 seq., &c.)
1 The Chain of Causation, or the doctrine of the twelve nidânas (causes of existence), contains, as has often been observed, in a more developed form an answer to the same problem to which the second and third of the four Noble Truths (ariyasakka) also try to give a solution, viz. the problem of the origin and destruction of suffering. The Noble Truths simply reduce the origin of suffering to Thirst, or Desire (Tanhâ), in its threefold form, thirst for pleasure, thirst for existence, thirst for prosperity (see I, 6, 20). In the system of the twelve nidânas Thirst also has found its place among the causes of suffering, but it is not considered as the immediate cause. A concatenation of other categories is inserted between tanhâ and its ultimate effect; and on the other hand, the investigation of causes is carried on further beyond tanhâ. The question is here asked, What does tan hâ come from? and thus the series of causes and effects is led back to aviggâ (Ignorance), as its deepest root. We may add that the redactors of the Pitakas, who of course could not but observe this parallelity between the second and third ariyasakkas and the system of the twelve nidânas, go so far, in one instance (Anguttara-Nikâya, Tika-Nipâta, fol. ke of the Phayre MS.), as to directly replace, in giving the text of the four ariyasakkas, the second and third of them by the twelve nidânas, in direct and reverse order respectively. Professor Childers has furnished a valuable note on the nidânas; see Colebrooke, Miscellaneous Essays (second edition), II, 453 seq.
2 In the Sammâditthisuttanta (Magghima-Nikâya, fol. khû of Turnour's MS.) we find the following explanation of what Ignorance is: Not to know Suffering, not to know the Cause of suffering,
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