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INTRODUCTION TO THE MAHA-SUDASSANA-SUTTANTA.

This
Suttanta is an expansion of the conversation recorded in the Book of
the Great Decease (above, Ch. V, § 17). The same legend recurs as the
Maha-Sudassana Jataka, No. 95 in Mr. Fausboll’s edition. As the latter
differs in several important particulars from our Suttanta, it is
probably not taken directly from it, but is merely derived from the

same source. To facilitate comparison between the two I add here a translation of the Jataka.

The
part enclosed in square brackets | | is the so-called Story of the
Present : and the whole was probably written in Ceylon in the fifth
century of our era. There is every reason to believe, for the reasons
given in my ‘ Buddhist India ‘ (pp. 201-7), that the stories themselves
belong to a very early period in the history of Buddhism and are, many
of them, older even than Buddhism. We may be sure that if this
particular story had been abstracted by the author of the commentary
from our Suttanta, he would not have ventured to introduce such serious
changes into what he regarded as sacred writ.

MAHA-SUDASSANA JATAKA.

•
How transient are all component things.’ This the Master told when
lying on his death-couch, concerning that word of Ananda the Thera, when
he said : — ‘ Do not, O Exalted One, die in this little town,’ and so
on. When the Tathagata was at the Jetavana 1 he thought : —

1
It is not easy with our present materials to reconcile the apparently
conflicting statements with regard to the Buddha’s last journey.
According to the Malalahkara-vatthu this refers here to a residence at
the Jetavana, which took place between the end of § 23 in Chap. II in
the Book of the Great Decease, and the beginning of § 24.

Mr.
Fausboll, by his punctuation, includes these words in the following
thought ascribed to the Exalted One, but I think they only describe the
time at which the thought is supposed to have arisen.

‘The
Thera Sariputta, who was born at Nalagama, has died, on the day of the
full moon in the month of Kattika, in the chamber in which he had been
born 1 ; and Maha-Moggallana in the latter, the dark half of that same
month. As my two chief disciples are thus dead, I too will pass away at
Kusinara.’ Thereupon he proceeded straight on to that place, and lay
down on the Uttarasisaka couch, between the twin Sala trees, never to
rise again.

Then
the venerable Ananda besought him, saying: — ‘Let not the Exalted One
die in this little township, in this little town in the jungle, in this
branch township. Let the Exalted One die in one of the other great
cities, such as Rajagaha, and the rest! ‘

But
the Master answered: — ‘ Say not, Ananda, that this is a little
township, a little town in the jungle, a branch township. I was dwelling
formerly in this town at the time when I was Sudassana, the king of
kings; and then it was a great city, surrounded by a jewelled rampart,
twelve leagues in length! ‘And at the request of the Thera, he, telling
the tale, uttered the Maha-Sudassana-Sutta 2} .

Now
on that occasion when Queen Subhadda saw Maha- Sudassana when he had
come down out of the Palace of Righteousness, and was lying down, not
far off, on the appropriate couch, spread out in the grove of the seven
kinds of gems, and when she said: — ‘ Thine, O king, are these four and
eighty thousand cities, of which the chief is the royal city of
Kusavati. Set thy heart on these ‘ ; — Then replied Maba-Sudassana:
‘Speak not thus, O queen! But exhort me rather, saying: — “Cast away
desire for these, long not after them 3 .” ‘

1
The text reads ‘ at Varaka.’ But this is a mistake. The word which has
puzzled Mr. Fausboll is ovaraka. The modern name of the village,
afterwards the site of the famous Buddhist university of Nalanda, is
Baragaon. The full-moon day in Kattika is the first of December. An
account of the death of Sariputta will be found in the
Malalahkara-vatthu (Bigandet, ‘Legend,’ &c, 3rd ed., II, 1-25), and
of the murder of Moggallana by the NigawMas in the Dhammapada commentary
(Fausboll, p. 298 seq.), of which Spence Hardy’s account (’ Manual of
Buddhism,’ p. 338) is nearly a translation; and Bigandet’s account (loc.
cit., pp. 25-7) is an abridgement.

2
In the earliest description of this conversation (above, ‘ Book of the
Great Decease/ V, 17) there is no mention of this. But it is inserted
most incongruously in the present Suttanta.

3 Both these speeches are different from those given on the same occasion in the Suttanta below.

And
when she asked: — ‘ Why so, O king? ‘ ‘ To-day my time is come, and I
shall die ! ‘was his reply 1 . Then the weeping queen, wiping her eyes,
brought herself with difficulty and distress to address him accordingly.
And having spoken, she wept, and lamented; and the other four and
eighty thousand women wept too, and lamented; and of the attendant
courtiers not one could restrain himself, but all also wept. But the
Bodisat stopped them all, saying: — ‘ Enough, my friends! Be still! ‘And
he exhorted the queen, saying: — ‘ neither do thou, O queen, weep:
neither do thou lament. For down even unto a grain of sesamum fruit
there is no such thing as a compound which is permanent! All are
transient; all have the inherent quality of dissolution! ‘And when he
had so said, he further uttered this stanza: — ‘ How transient are all
component things! Growth is their nature and decay: They are produced,
they are dissolved again: To bring them into full subjection, that is
bliss 2

[In
these verses the words ‘ How transient are all component things! ‘ mean
‘ Dear lady Subhadda, wheresoever and by whatsoever causes made or come
together, compounds 3 , — that is, all those things which possess the
essential constituents [whether material or mental] of existing things 4
, — all these compounds are impermanence itself. For of these form 5 is
impermanent, reason 6 is impermanent, the [mental] eye 7 is
impermanent, and qualities 8 are impermanent. And whatever treasure
there is, whether conscious or unconscious, that is transitory.
Understand therefore “How transient are all component things!”

‘And
why? “Growth is their nature and decay.” These, all, have the inherent
quality of coming into [individual] existence, and have also the
inherent quality of growing old; or [in other words] their very nature
is to come into existence and to be broken up. Therefore should it be
understood that they are impermanent. ‘ And since they are impermanent,
when ” they are produced, they are dissolved again.” Having come into
existence,

1 This question and answer are not in the Suttanta.

2
All this is omitted in the Suttanta. It is true the verse occurs here,
but it is placed in the mouth of the Teacher, after the account of
Maha-Sudassana’s death.

3 Sankhara.

4 Khandayatanadayo.

5 Rupam.

6 Vififianam.

7 Cakkhum.

8 Dhamma.

having
reached a state 1 , they are surely dissolved. For all these things
come into existence, taking an individual form; and are dissolved, being
broken up. To them as soon as there is birth, there is what is called a
state; as soon as there is a state, there is what is called
disintegration 2 . For to the unborn there is no such thing as state,
and there is no such thing as a state which is without disintegration.
Thus are all compounds, having attained to the three characteristic
marks [of impermanency, pain, and want of any abiding principle], and
subject, in this way and in that way, to dissolution. All these
component things therefore, without exception, are impermanent,
momentary, despicable, unstable, disintegrating, trembling, quaking,
unlasting, sure to depart 3 , only for a time 4 , and without substance ;
as temporary as a phantom, as the mirage, or as foam !

‘How
then in these, dear lady Subhadda, can you feel any sign of
satisfaction? Understand rather than “to bring them into subjection,
that is bliss.” For to bring them into subjection, since it involves
mastery over the whole circle of transmigration,

is the same as Nirvana. That and this are one 5 . And there is no other bliss than that.’]

And
when Maha-Sudassana had thus brought his discourse to a point with the
ambrosial great Nirvana, and had made exhortation also to the rest of
the great multitude, saying : — ‘ Give gifts ! Observe the precepts !
Keep the sacred days 6 ! ‘ he became an inheritor of the world of the
gods.

[When
the Master had concluded this lesson in the truth, he summed up the
Jataka, saying: — ‘ She who was then Subhadda the queen was the mother
of Rahula, the great adviser was Rahula, the rest of the retinue the
Buddha’s retinue, and

Maha-Sudassana I myself.’]

The
word translated ‘ component things ‘ or ‘ compounds ‘ is sarikhara,
literally confections, from kar, ‘to make,’ and sam, ‘ together.’ It is a
word very frequently used in Buddhist writings, and a word consequently
of many different connota- tions ; and there is, of course, no exactly
corresponding word

1 Thiti.

2 Bhango.

3 Payata, literally ‘departed.’ The forms payati and payato, given by Childers, should be corrected into payati and payato.

4 Tavakalika. See Jataka I, 121, where the word is used of a cart let out on hire for a time only.

5 Tad ev ekam ekam, which is not altogether without ambiguity.

6 This paragraph, too, is omitted in the Suttanta.

in
English. ‘Production ‘ would often be very nearly correct, although it
fails entirely to give the force of the preposition sam; but a greater
objection to that word is the fact that it is generally used, not of
things that have come into being of themselves, but of things that have
been produced by some one else. It suggests, if it does not imply, a
producer; which is contrary to the whole spirit of the Buddhist passages
in which the word sankhara occurs. In this important respect the word ‘
compound ‘ is a much more accurate translation, though it lays somewhat
too much stress on the sam. The term Confections (to coin a rendering)
is sometimes used to denote all things which have been brought together,
made up, by pre-existing causes; phenomena in general. In this sense it
includes, as the commentator here points out, all those material or
mental qualities which unite to form an individual, a separate thing or
being, whether conscious or unconscious.

It
is more usually used, (with special reference to their origin from
pre-existing causes, and with allusion to the wider meanings just above
explained), of the mental confections only, the mental constituents, of
all sentient beings generally, or of man alone. In this sense it forms
by itself one of the five classes or aggregates (khan d ha) into which
the material and mental qualities of each separate individual are
divided in Buddhist writings— the class of dispositions, capabilities,
and all that goes together to make what we call character. This class
has naturally enough been again divided and subdivided ;

and
a full list of the Confections in this sense, as now acknowledged by
orthodox Buddhists, will be found in my manual ‘Buddhism’ (pp. 91, 92).
At the time when the Five Nikayas reached their present form, no such
elaborate list of Confections in detail seems to have been made ; but
the general sense of the word was, as is quite clear from the passages
in which it occurs, the idea which these details together convey. It is
this second and more usual meaning of the term which is more especially
emphasized in the

concluding verse of the above stanza.

Turning
now to the Suttanta itself, we find that the portion of the legend
omitted in the Jataka throws an unexpected light upon the tale ; for it
commences with a long description of the riches and glory of
Maha-Sudassana, and reveals in its details the instructive fact that the
legend is nothing more nor less than a spiritualized sun-myth.

It
cannot be disputed that the sun-myth theory has become greatly
discredited, and with reason, by having been used too carelessly and
freely as an explanation of religious legends of different times and
countries which have really no historical connexion with the earlier awe
and reverence inspired by the sun. The very mention of the word
sun-myth is apt to call forth a smile of incredulity, and the
indubitable truth which s the basis of the theory has not sufficed to
protect it from the shafts of ridicule. The ‘ Book of the Great King of
Glory ‘ .seems to afford a useful example both of the extent to which
the theory may be accepted, and of the limitations under which it should
always be applied.

It
must at once be admitted that whether the whole story is based on a
sun-story, or whether certain parts or details of it are derived from
things first spoken about the sun, or not, it is still essentially
Buddhistic. A large proportion of its contents has nothing at all to do
with the worship of the sun ; and even that which has, had not, in the
mind of the author, when the book was put together. Whether indebted to a
sun-myth or not, it is therefore perfectly true and valid evidence of
the religious belief of the people among whom it was current ; and no
more shows that the Buddhists were unconscious sun-worshippers than the
story of Samson, under any theory of its possible origin, would prove
the same of the Jews.

What
we really have is a kind of wonderful fairy tale, a gorgeous poem, in
which an attempt is made to describe in set terms the greatest possible
glory and majesty of the

greatest
possible king, in order to show that all is vanity, save only
righteousness — just such a poem as a Jewish prophet might have written
of Solomon in all his glory. It would

have
been most strange, perhaps impossible, for the author to refrain from
using the language of the only poets he knew, who had used their boldly
figurative language in an attempt to describe the appearance of the sun.
To trace back all the rhetorical phrases of our Sutta to their earliest
appearance in the Vedic hymns would be an interest- ing task of
historical philology, though it would throw more light upon Buddhist
forms of speech than upon Buddhist forms of belief. In M. Senart’s
valuable work, ‘ La Legende du Bouddha,’ he has already done this with
regard to the seven treasures (mentioned in the early part of the
Suttanta) on the basis of the corresponding passage in the later
Buddhist Sanskrit poem called the Lalita Vistara. The description of the
royal city and of its wondrous Palace of Righteousness has been
probably originated by the author, though on the same lines ; and it
reminds one irresistibly, in many of its expressions, of the similar,
but simpler and more beautiful poem in which a Jewish author, some three
or four centuries afterwards, described the heavenly Jerusalem.

When
the Northern Buddhists, long afterwards, had smothered the simple
teaching of the founder of their religion under the subtleties of
theological and metaphysical speculation, and had forgotten all about
the Aryan Path, their goal was no longer a change of heart in the
Arahantship to be reached on earth, but a life of happiness, under a
change of outward condition, in a heaven of bliss beyond the skies. One
of the most popular books among the Buddhists of China and Japan is a
description of this heavenly paradise of theirs, called the
Sukhavati-vyuha, the ‘ Book of the Happy Country.’ It is instructive to
find that several of the expressions used are word for word the same as
the corresponding phrases in our much older ‘ Book of the Great King of
Glory.’

Incidentally
the details given in this Suttanta enable us to judge as to what was
considered, at the time when it was put together, to be the greatest
possible luxury and glory of the mightiest and most righteous king. In
spite of the exuberance of some of the language used, the luxury is
after all curiously simple, and mostly of an out-of-door kind. A summary
of the conclusions which can be drawn from the sacred books of the
Buddhists as to the social and economic condition of the Ganges valley,
at the time when those books were composed, will be found in my ‘
Buddhist India,’ ch. IV-VI. The very simple character of the luxury here
depicted is in accordance with the evidence there given.