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    Mahapadana Sutta
    Mahapadana Sutta
    Mahapadana Sutta
    Ebook54 pages53 minutes

    Mahapadana Sutta

    By T. W. Rhys Davids

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    About this ebook

    This is a detailed explanation as to why scholars and researchers of Buddhism can no longer be certain of the real teachings of Buddha. This is because of the rise of different Suttantas (discourses, teachings) that have hidden the original Suttantas.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGood Press
    Release dateDec 8, 2020
    ISBN4064066412227
    Mahapadana Sutta

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      Mahapadana Sutta - T. W. Rhys Davids

      T. W. Rhys Davids

      Mahapadana Sutta

      Published by Good Press, 2022

      goodpress@okpublishing.info

      EAN 4064066412227

      Table of Contents

      Cover

      Titlepage

      DN 14 - MAHAPADANA SUTTANTA

      THE SUBLIME STORY

      INTRODUCTION TO THE MAHAPADANA SUTTANTA. By T. W. Rhys Davids

      We find in this tract the root of that Birana-weed which, growing up along with the rest of Buddhism, went on spreading so luxuriantly that it gradually covered up much that was of value in the earlier teaching, and finally led to the down-fall, in its home in India, of the ancient faith. The doctrine of the Bodhisatta, of the Wisdom-Being, drove out the doctrine of the Aryan Path. A gorgeous hierarchy of mythological wonder-workers filled men's minds, and the older system of self-training and self-control became forgotten.

      Even at its first appearance here the weed is not attractive. The craving for edification is more manifest in it than the desire for truth. We have legends of six forerunners of the historical Buddha, each constructed with wearisome iteration, in imitation of the then accepted beliefs as to the life of Gotama. So exactly do these six legends follow one pattern that it has been possible, without the omission of any detail, to arrange them in parallel columns.

      The main motive of this parallelism is revealed in the constantly repeated refrain Ayam ettha dhammata: 'That, in such a case, is the rule,' the Norm, the natural order of things, according to the reign of law in the moral and physical world. Precisely the same idea is emphasized in the doctrine of dependent origination, the Padcca-samuppada, placed here in the mouth of Vipassi, the most ancient of these six teachers of old. The fact that it is so placed shows that the early

      Buddhists, when our Suttanta was composed, believed this doctrine to have been pre-Buddhistic.

      It is probable that all the great religious teachers of antiquity appealed, in support of their views, to the wise men of still older times. It is so recorded of most of them; and where it is not recorded, as in the cases of Lao Tsii and Zarathustra, that is probably due to the meagreness of the extant records. In every country where the level of intelligence was sufficient to produce a great leader of men in matters of religion, it was sufficient also to bear in remembrance the

      names at least, and a vague notion as to some of the doctrines, of former, if perhaps less successful and famous, reformers.

      But a Wisdom-Being, appearing from aeon to aeon under similar circumstances to propound a similar faith! This is an exclusively Indian conception; in Indian literature it is mainly Buddhist; and in Buddhist literature its first appearance is in documents of the date of our Suttanta. Did

      the Buddha himself know anything of this theory? Possibly not. The theory of a number of successive Buddhas pre-supposes the conception of a Buddha as a different and more exalted personage than an Arahant. Now in our oldest documents these two conceptions are still in a state of fusion. The word Buddha does not occur in its later, special, technical sense. It occurs often enough in ambiguous phrases, where it may be translated by 'Converted One, Awakened One.' Thus at Sutta Nipata 48 it is said, of Gotama, 'The Awakened One (Buddho) came to Rajagaha'; but the time referred to is some years before he had become a Buddha in the later technical sense. And at Sutta Nipata 167 it is said: ' Let us ask Gotama, the awakened one who has passed beyond anger and fear '; but the very same adjectives are used at Itivuttaka, No. 68, of any ordinary Arahant. So the phrases used to describe the mental crises in Gotama's career are invariably precisely the same as those used under similar circumstances of his disciples; and this holds good both of his going forth, and of his victory and attainment of Nirvana under the Tree of Wisdom. Further than that, in long descriptions of Gotama — such for instance as that in Sutta Nipata, verses 153 to 167 — all the epithets used are found elsewhere applied to one or other of his disciples. The teacher never called himself a Buddha (as distinct from an Arahant). When addressed as Buddha, or spoken of

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