Vinaya Texts

Author(s): T W Rhys Davids, Hermann Oldenberg
Publisher: Oxford

Page 26

INTRODUCTION.
xxiii
brought down to the period from 420-400 B.C. We do not enter upon that question here, as the details are intricate, and the result uncertain; and it is sufficient for our present purpose to be able to fix the Council of Vesâlî, even after making allowance for all possibilities, at within thirty years of 350 B.C.
We would only point out that there is really no ground for discontent with a result which can be fixed, after all, within a few decades. For what difference does that make in this case? If we had to deal with Grecian history, such a result might well be deemed unsatisfactory. There are differences, both personal and political, between Greece in 480, in 440, and in 400differences well known to us. But whether we fix the date of an event in India in 480, or in 440, what does it, at present, matter? Who would be bold enough to say that the mention of India in 480 B.C. calls up to his mind a condition of things different from that suggested by the mention of India in 440 B.C., or even in 400 B.C.? We need not therefore take too much to heart the uncertainty of this chronological result; though we may regret that our comfort is drawn from no better source than our want of knowledge.
The Vibhanga and the Twenty Khandhakas were at that time (circa 350 B.C.) already held in such high repute that no one ventured to alter them; a sanctity of this kind is not acquired without the lapse of a considerable time: and we think it is not going too far to say, Firstly, that these books must have been in existence, as we now have them, within thirty years, earlier or later, of, at least, 360 or 370 B.C.; Secondly, that the Old Commentary they have preserved must be considerably, perhaps fifty years, older; and Thirdly, that the Kammavâkâs and the Pâtimokkha must be older still.
The reader will notice that in the foregoing discussion no mention has been made of the Fifth Book in the present
1 See the dissertation on this subject in Rhys Davids's . Ancient Coins and Measures of Ceylon;' and, more shortly, the close of the Introduction to his
Buddhist Suttas from the Pâli.'
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