Part 1 - Introduction to Theravāda Buddhism and the Pali Canon

Historians believe that Buddhism was founded around the 6^th century B.C.E. by Siddhārtha, the Gautama, the prince of the Sākya clan^[1]. They belonged to the lower Himālayana region of the North-Eastern range, proper. Before him the Sākyas were little known on account of their ancient Indian republican state. Their rise to fame and fall occurred during the very life time of the Lord Buddha Himself. Sākyaputta became “Buddha” the wise one, under the Bodhi-tree on the full Moon night in the month of Vesākha. The Buddha’s first sermon, the “Dhammacakkapavattana” (Turning of the wheel of law) was put forth his Majjhimā Paṭipadā,^[2] along with Cattāri Ariya Saccāni and the Ariya Aṭṭhaṅgika Magga. That marked the beginning of the Buddha’s Saddhamma, popularly known as Buddhism.

By the time the Buddha attained Mahāparinibbāna at the age of the 80 years, the teachings he had propounded had large following in the Magadha-Kosala Janapada and in North-East India^[3] as well. Afterwards the first Buddhist council in India held at Rājagaha, formally distributed the Buddha’s teachings in Pāli Tipiṭaka that might be in the oral tradition and those were carried over to Sri Lanka.

The first Buddhist Council codified then in writing as per the historian’s record. After a gap of a few centuries Buddhaghoṣa (5^th century C.E.) of Magadha went to Sri Lanka, the then Sīhala in Pāli with a mission to make those Tipiṭaka text understandable after about a millennium from the demise of the Buddha. By then during the Gupta period (4^th century C.E.) in Indian history Brāhmnic merits could spread widely. The Dharma Śāśtra got new dimension in those days and new interpretation of Mimāṃsaka flourished. On the other hand Buddhists in India particularly in the Northern part of India felt the need of making Buddhism “popular”^[4]. Its Lexiconic significance is ‘carried on by the people‘. It may be added that Buddhist after the Demise of the Buddha Gautama, Buddhists in India felt insured and helpless as the founder did not left his successor. It was, therefore, a grim necessity for Buddhaghoṣa to render the commentaries of Tipiṭaka from the drafts available in Mahāvihāra of Sīhala. There by the Pāli Aṭṭhakathā literature became extensive in Pāli literature as separate from the Tipiṭakas. As a result of innumerable stories relating to ordinary persons puthujjana^[5] came in preview occasionally in the commentaries. Thereby common people could get be some aware of themselves in their problems in their personal life. Jātaka stories as mentioned in the Aṭṭhakathā became popular in which the doctrinal critique had been shifted separately from the stories.

In such a study it is thought convenient to restrict one-self to the study of religious preachers including the Tathāgata. In this connection socio-political as well as religious history will come into the picture. Religious and allied matters in general must not be given due weight-age and consideration. Therefore in the Introduction, an attempt is made to analyses the purpose of composition of Jātaka stories according to the orthodox Pāli Buddhist tradition.

The Buddhism at its very inception was meant for the monks or “Bhikkhus”^[6] who, having left the household life, got entry into the Saṅgha.^[7] The summum bonum of these Bhikkhus was to attain “Nirvāṇa”. It is believed that the highly intrinsic nature of the Buddhist religion was quite beyond the reach of the common people known as Upāsaka (laities). It was mainly for the monks and nuns who were spiritually more advanced than the common mass. This subtle nature of the “Dhamma”^[8] could not touch the heart of the people in general. Therefore, in order to make the Buddhism popular the creation of the Pāli Jātaka was felt necessary for the lay Buddhist. The main purpose of this literature was to raise the moral of the people. The Pāli canon is not a book which took shape or came into existence all at once.

It is only a corpus of texts that grew up by stages and no less by different permutation and combinations, additions, and alternations, expositions, and deliberations. And yet whole of it was allowed by the Theravāda traditions to pass as “Buddhavacana”^[9] –the word of the Buddha. The same is honoured also as “pavacana”–“the best words” or “Satthusāsana”^[10]—‘the authority of the master’. The same constitutes “Pariyatti”—the main subject of the study, to the disciples and the followers of the Buddha. It is claimed by Buddhaghoṣa, the greatest known Pāli commentator, that the language through the medium of which the Buddha promulgated his doctrine and discipline, was Māgadhī. To Buddhaghoṣa and other Pāli commentators, Māgadhī is, indeed, the “Nirutti”^[11] (diction) of what is now known as the Pāli Canon. Whether the language of the extant Pāli Canon developed on the habitual diction of the Buddha is still a disputed question.

The History of the Pāli Canon itself covers some five centuries of literary development from the day of the first impetus given it by the Buddha to that of the first commitment of the text writing towards the middle or the end of the 1^st century (C. 29–17 B.C.E.) during the reign of King Vaṭṭhagāmaṇī^[12] of Sri Lanka. The Pāli Canon became virtually closed, once it was committed to writing, there being hardly any new addition to it thereafter.

According to the Buddhist tradition, the Pāli Canon is composed of 84,000 “Dhammakkhandhas” (sections and paragraphs or chapters and verses) out of which 82,000 are Buddha’s own, and his disciples like Sāriputta, Ānanda, Mahākaccāyana etc. Even the words of the disciples of the Buddha is said to have made His own by virtue of seal of approval attached to them. Even when the fact of approval was being written, all that was added to the Canon is regarded as Buddha’s own word on the ground that everything developed on the basis of “Mātikās” (schemes) formulated by Him^[13].

Now if we fix our attention on the traditional verses embodied in the Parivārapāṭha, the third treatise of the Vinayapiṭaka, we have to infer there from that the Five Nikāyas^[14], the seven treatises of the Abhidhammapiṭaka and all the older texts of the Vinayapiṭaka were made known to the people of Sri Lanka by the Mahinda Thera, the son of king Aśoka. Thera Mahinda, arrived at Sri Lanka from “Jammudīpa” (conventionally known as India) after the 3^rd Buddhist Council (Tatiya Saṃgīti^[15]). It had been 3^rdcentury B.C.E. from the time of the demise of the Buddha (C.483 B.C.E.) to the reign of Vaṭṭhagāmaṇī of Sri Lanka covers not less than four centuries during which there had been convened as many as six orthodox Councils, three in India and three in Sri Lanka:

i) The first council of Rājagaha, during the reign of King Ajātasatthu (C. 483 B.C.E.)
ii) The second council of Vesālī, during the reign of King Kālāsoka (C. 383 B.C.E.)
iii) The third council of Pātaliputta, in the reign of King Aśoka (C. 247 B.C.E.)
iv) The fourth council of Ceylon (Ālu–Vihāra) during the reign of King Vaṭṭhagāmaṇī (C. 101-77 B.C.E.)
v) The fifth council of Māṇḍalaya, in the reign of King Mindon (C.1871 C.E.)
vi) The sixth council of Rangoon, during the time of Prime Minister U Nu (C. 1954 C.E.)

The Pāli accounts of the Councils make it clear that the purpose of each of them was the Saṃgāyana^[16] (recital and setting of the canonical texts). These Councils are regarded as certain definite landmark in the process of the development of Pāli canonical literature. We can say that during the first four centuries after the Buddha’s demise, Pāli literature underwent as many as six successive redactions. 

Based on the dates assigned to these Councils, B.C.Law^[17] divides the interval into such shorter periods of Pāli literary history as follows:

First Period	(483–383 B.C.E.)
Second Period	(383–265 B.C.E.)
Third Period	(265–230 B.C.E.)
Fourth Period	(230–80 B.C.E.)
Fifth Period	(80–20 B.C.E.)

Now, the Pāli literature could be divided into 1) the Canonical 2) Non–Canonical. The Canonical literature known as Tripiṭaka (in Pāli Tipiṭaka) is formed of three Piṭakas or baskets of wisdom: the Vinaya Piṭaka, the Sutta Piṭaka, the Abhidhamma Piṭaka. They contain as traditional wisdom handed down.

Footnotes and references:

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[1]:

Sanskrit Śākya which means ‘the one who is capable’. A Tibetan English Dictionary: with Sanskrit synonyms, Sarat Chandra Das, p.582; In Pāli Sākya denoted as: Sākiya, Sakka or Sakya. There, “Sākiya” is used primarily to refer to people of Shakya in general. ‘Sakka’, primarily to the Shakya country as well as to its noble families. And ‘Sakya”, primarily to members of the Buddhist Order. “The Inscription on the Piprawa Vase” J. R..A.S., J.F. Fleet, pp. 161,163,164; the Shakya were by tradition Sun worshippers, who called themselves Ādicca nāma gotten (kinsmen of the Sun). Gotama Buddha: A Biography based on the Most Reliable Texts, Hajme Nakamura, Vol. I, p.124; In the Suttanipāta, we see Buddha states that ‘they are of the Sun-lineage (Ādiccagotta, Pabbajjā Sutta), Sakiyans by birth (Pali Text Society p. 51); It naturally derives its great importance from the fact that Gautama Buddha was a Śākya by birth. The Śākya claimed to belong to the solar race and Ikṣvāku family, and regarded themselves as people of Kosala.

[2]:

Majjhimapaṭipadā = Majjima+Paṭipada (Pati+Pad); Patipada means of reading, a good or destination, way, method of progress. Pali English Dictionary, p.396; Buddhas teaching is mainly concentrated on the avoidance of the two extremes (dve antā) i.e. i) Self mortification (Kāmesukāmasukhallikānuyogo) ii) Self indulgence in ascetic life (attakilamatthānuyogo). Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, Paṭhamadhamma desanā, Mahāvagga, Vinaya I, p.10; Saṃyuttanikāya, Pali Text Society Vol. V. p.420; Facets of Early Buddhism, Bela Bhattacharya, p.16-17 ff.

[3]:

‘Mjjhimadesa’ have been described in both the Brāhmanical and the Buddhist Literature. Baudhāyaṇa’s Dharmasūtra mentions it as lying to the east of the region where the river Saraswati disappears, to the west of the Black forest (Kālakavana), a tract somewhere near Prayāga, to the North of the Pāripātra–mountain and to the South of the Himalayas. But The Buddhist Literature (Vinayapiṭaka) described the boundaries of Mjjhimadesa are as follows–to the East is the town Kajaṅgala, and beyond it Mahāsāla, to the South-East is the river Salalavatī (Sarāva), to the South is the town Setakaṇṇika, to the West is the Brāhmaṇa District of Thuna (Sthāneśvar), to the North is the mountain range called Usiradhaja, a mountain to the north of Kaṅkhala, Hardwar. Buddhist Centres In Ancient India, Binayendra Nath Chaudhury, p.12.

[4]:

Originally Latin popularizes as people; Anglo-French, Popular, Oxford Dictionary, 1963, end.V, p.946a.

[5]:

Puthujjana = Puthu + jana; “Puthu” means “pṛthak” & “pṛthu” in Vedic form. It is also identical in Pāli form. And “Jana” means person, an individual, man. In Pāli Puthujjana means an ordinary man, average person, a common worldling, a man of the people. Pali English Dictionary, T. W. Rhys Davids & William Stede, pp.466, 278. We see in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta of Saṃyuttanikāya (56.11) ‘yo cāyam Kāmesukāmasukhallikānuyogo hīno, gammo puthujjaniko anariyo, anatthasaṃhito…….’

[6]:

Bhikkhu–Bhikkh (u), √Bhi (to fear), ikkh (īkṣ) = to see and Bhikkhu defined as “Saṃsāre bhayaṃ ikkhati ti Bhikkhu” . Vissudhimagga, 3, p.16, Vibhaṅga, p.24; A fully ordined Buddhist Monk, who is at least twenty years of age. cf. Samaggena Saṅghen ñātticatutthena kammena akkuppena ṭhānārahena uposampanno ti bhikkhu, Sāmantapāsadikā, Vol.1, p.232; A Bhikkhu of ten years standing in known as Thera Bhikkhu. Sp., Vol. I, p. 232; This Bhikkhu alone can become an Upājjhāya or Ācariya of a monk and he alone can ordain a person. Mahāvagga, pp. 57, 67, Ibid., p. 173.

[7]:

Saṅgha - Third of the “three Jewels” (Tri-ratna) of Buddhism: The Order of Bhikkhus, or monks. The word Saṅgha means “assembly” and was term used in Nikāya. India at the time of the Buddha for assemblies, by means of which contemporary tribal republic or confederations managed their affairs. The republican assemblies are brought into connection with the Buddhas. A Dictionary of Buddhism, Trevor Ling, p.168; Glossary, A.C. March, p.75; Dictionary of the Early Buddhist Monastic Terms, Prof. C.S. Upasak, p.209 f.

[8]:

Dhamma–Conveys various meanings: √dhṛ “to hold” or support that which forms a foundation. Dhammapada Aṭṭhakathā, (I. p.22) gives a four fold meaning of the term dhamma viz. (1) guṇa-quality, virtue applied to good conduct. (2) desanā–to preaching and moral instruction (3) pariyatti–to the nine fold collection of text of Buddhist scriptures. (4) nissatta–to cosmic (non animistic) law. Encyclopaedia of Buddhism, G.P. Malalasekera, ed. Vol. IV, pp. 438 f; Saṃyuttanikāya,Pali Text Society Vol. IV, p.185.

[9]:

Buddhavacana or Buddhasāsana (word or instruction of the Buddha) consists of three parts:-i) Pariyatti sāsana (learning); stands for the sacred scriptures to be learnt by heart and to be recited together. ii) Paṭipatti sāsana (practicing the doctrines) denotes the rules of normal conduct to be practiced in order to attain Arthaphala. iii) Paṭiveda sāsana (realizing the doctrines) resembles the burjed treasure of gold to be discovered and enjoyed. Buddhist Councils and Development Buddhism, S. Barua, p.137.

[10]:

Satthusāsana -In addition to the division of the sacred texts into three Piṭakas, there is also an older division mentioned in the Pali text itself. Majjhimanikāya, p. 22, Aṅguttaranikāya, IV, p.6, Buddhist Literature was divided into Nine aṅgas which became known as Navāṅga–Satthusāsana i.e. 1) Sutta (Sermon in Prose) 2)Geyya (Sermon in verse) 3) Veyyākarana (explanation) 4) Gāthā (Stanzas) 5) Udāna (inspired expressions) 6)Itivuttaka (short saying, begin with ―thus spoke the Budda) 7) Jātaka stories of previous births of the Buddha) 8) Abbhutadhamma (commentaries on the miraculous situations) 9) Vedalla (Lectures in the form of question and answer). History of Indian literature, M. Winternitz, Vol.II, pp. 18-19, (f.n. 36); The Age of Imperial Unity, S. Ramakrishnan (ed.), p.396.

[11]:

Buddha’s own language, Māgadhi. (cf. Sakāya nirutti nāma Sammāsambhuddhena vuttapakārena māgadhi ko vohāro, Sāmanta Pāsādikā ,Vol. III, p. 1297.

[12]:

King of Sri Lanka (29-17 B.C.E). He was a son of Saddhatissa and came to the throne by killing the usurper Mahāraṭṭaka. The Cullavaṃsa calls him the founder of the Majjhavelā-vihāra. Dīpasvaṃsa, XX, pp.14ff; Cullavaṃsa,1,XXIII,18; Dictionary of Pali Proper Names, G.P. Malalasekera, Vol. II, pp.817-18.

[13]:

Atthasālinī, Pali Text Society Vol.I, pp. 10-12.

[14]:

Nikāya–A body of things, or a collection, thus (1) a collection of Suttas or Discourses (usually) of the Buddha. Five such Nikāyas together make up the Sutta Piṭaka, second of the three constituent parts of Pāli Canon of scripture, viz. the Dīghanikāya, Majjhimanikāya, Saṃyuttanikāya, Aṅguttaranikāya, Khuddakanikāya, (2) A body of monks; the term Nikāya is used in this sense in Ceylon to distinguish sects or schools of the Saṅgha. Ibid., p.151.

[15]:

The third council was held at Pāṭaliputta under the patronage of Aśoka in the Asokārāma at about 247 B.C.E. This council was convened under the presidentship of famous monk Moggaliputtatissa. We may know from this council that–a) The Ācariyavādins differed from the Theravādins not only in disciplinary rules but also in doctrinal principles. b) The Kathāvatthu was definitely the outcome of the deliberations of the council. c) The Theravāda–vibhajjavādins only the exclusion of the adherents of other sects, meant together and reaffirmed their acceptance of the Theravāda Piṭaka collection. d) The heretics are none other than those Buddhists were Ācariyavādins, i.e. the Mahāśaṅghikans and their off shoots. Early Monastic Buddhism, N. Dutta,Vol.2, p.271; 2500 of Buddhism, P.V. Bapat, p. 20.

[16]:

Saṃgāyana or Saṃgīti = Saṃ + √gai; means in general sense “A song” ; “music” , “concord” , to concert, a sound of same pitch. According to the Buddhist tradition, the term means rehearsal, collective recitation and proclamation, but the Pali term Saṃgīti can be rendered into English as ―Council‘. Pali English Dictionary (T. W. Rhys Davids and William Stede) p. 666.

[17]:

History of Pali literature, B.C. Law, p. 40.