F. Max Muller - Buddhist Suttas

THE
SACRED BOOKS
OF THE EAST

Volume 11

SACRED BOOKS OF THE EAST

EDITOR: F. Max Mller

These volumes of the Sacred Books of the East Series include translations of all the most important works of the seven non-Christian religions. These have exercised a profound influence on the civilizations of the continent of Asia. The Vedic Brahmanic System claims 21 volumes. Buddhism 10, and Jainism 2;8 volumes comprise Sacred Books of the Parsees; 2 volumes represent Islam; and 6 the two main indigenous systems of China, thus placing the historical and comparative study of religions on a solid foundation.

Translated from Pli by
T. W. RHYS DAVIDS

1. THE MAH-PARINIBBNA SUTTANTA
2. THE DHAMMA-KAKKA-PPAVATTANA SUTTA
3. THE TEVIGGA SUTTANTA
4. THE KANKHEYYA SUTTA
5. THE KETOKHILA UTTA
6. THE MAH-SUDASSANA SUTTANTA
7. THE SABBSAVA SUTTA

First published 18951910 by
Curzon Press Ltd

Published 2013 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

BUDDHIST SUTTAS
Translated by T. W. Rhys Davids
ISBN 07007 1549 5

The Sacred Books of the East in 50 vols
ISBN 07007 0600 3

ISBN 0-7007-1549-5
ISBN 978-0-700-71549-7 (hbk)

CONTENTS.

Translation

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ON being asked to contribute a volume of translations from the Pli Suttas to the important series of which this work forms a part, the contributor has to face the difficulty of choosing from the stores of a nearly unknown literature a difficulty arising from the embarrassment, not of poverty, but of wealth. I have endeavoured to make such a choice as would enable me to bring together into one volume a collection of texts which should be as complete a sample as one volume could afford of what the Buddhist scriptures, on the whole, contain. With this object in view I have refrained from confining myself to the most interesting books those,namely, which deal with the Noble Eightfold Path, the most essential, the most original, and the most attractive part of Gotama's teaching; and I have chosen accordingly, besides the Sutta of the Foundation of the Kingdom of Righteousness (the Dhamma - kakka - ppavattana-Sutta), which treats of the Noble Path, six others which treat of other sides of the Budahist system; less interesting perhaps in their subject matter, but of no less historical value.

These are

1. The Book of the Great Decease (the Mahparinibbna-Suttanta), which is the Buddhist representative of what, among the Christians, is called a Gospel.

2. The Foundation of the Kingdom of Righteousness (the Dhamma-kakka-ppavattana-Sutta), containing the Four Noble Truths, and the Noble Eightfold Path which ends in Arahatship.

3. The Discussion on Knowledge of the Three Vodas (the Tevigga - Suttanta),which is a controversial dialogue on the right method of attaining to a state of union with Brahm.

4. The Sutta entitled If he should desire(kankheyya-Sutta), which shows in the course of a very beautiful argument some curious sides of early Buddhist mysticism and of curiously unjustified belief.

5. The Treatise on Barrenness and Bondage (the Ketokhila-Sutta) which treats ot the Buddhist Order of Mendicants, from the moral, as distinguished from the disciplinary, point of view.

6. The Legend of the Great King of Glory (the Mah-sudassana-Suttanta), which is an example of the way in which previously existing legends were dealt with by the early Buddhists.

7. The Sutta entitled All the savas (the Sabbsava-Sutta), which explains the signification of a constantly recurring technical term, and lays down the essential principles of Buddhist Agnosticism.

The Discipline of the Buddhist Mendicants, the Rules of their Orderprobably the most influential, as it is the oldest, in the worldwih be fully described, down to its minutest details, in the translation of the Vinaya Pitaka, which will appropriately form a subsequent part of this Series of Translations or the Sacred Books of the East. There was therefore no need to include any Sutta on this subject in the present volume: but of the rest of the matters discussed in the Buddhist Sacred Booksof Buddhist legend, gospel, controversial theology, and ethics the works selected will I trust give a correct and adequate, if necessarily a somewhat fragmentary, idea.

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The age of these writings can be fixed, without much uncertainty, at about the latter end of the fourth or the beginning of the third century before the commencement of the Christian era. This is the only hypothesis which seems, at present, to account for the facts known about them. It should not however be looked upon as anything more than a good working hypothesis to be accepted until all the texts of the Buddhist Pli Suttas shall have been properly edited. For it depends only on the fact that one of the texts now translated contains, several statements, and one very significant silence, which afford ground for chronological argument. That argument amounts only to probability, not to certainty; and it might scarcely be worth while to put it forward were it not that the course of the enquiry will be found to raise several questions of very considerable interest.