[ p. 139 ]
THIS translation is made from a transcript of the text as found in the very beautiful Ceylon MS. on silver plates, now in the British Museum[1]. The letters, which are perfectly formed, are cut into the silver; and the MS. has this peculiarity, that every sentence is repeated with a slight change in the collocation of the words. Thus the first sentence is given as follows:—
Evam me sutam. Ekam samayam Bhagavâ Bârânasiyam viharati Isipatane Migadâye. Me evam sutam. Ekam samayam Bhagavâ Bârânasiyam Isipatane Migadâye viharati.
As this repetition is merely carried out for the further security of the text it has not been followed in the translation.
This text belongs to the Anguttara Nikâya. M. Léon Feer has lithographed the Samyutta treatment in his ‘Textes tirés du Kandjour[2],’ together with the text of the corresponding passage in the Lalita Vistara, and the Tibetan translation from that poem. The Sanskrit text, so far as it runs parallel with our Sutta, will also be found in Rajendra Lal Mitra’s edition of the Lalita Vistara (p. 540 and foll.) and the Tibetan text, with a French translation, in M. Foucaux’s ‘rGya Cher Rol Pa.’ Dr. Oldenberg has just published the Vinaya treatment contained in the Mahâ Vagga I, 6. It is the same word for word as our Sutta (except § 1, which is of course not found there). The Samyutta expands the idea of the portion numbered below §§ 9-20, having also similar paragraphs in reference to the bhikkhus themselves. The [ p. 140 ] Lalita Vistara differs a good deal in minor details, but is substantially the same as regards the Noble Truths, and the eight divisions of the Noble Path.
A translation of this Sutta, found among Mr. Gogerly’s papers after his death, was published in the journal of the Ceylon Asiatic Society for 1865: and the journal Asiatique for 1870 contained a translation and full analysis by M. Léon Feer.
It would be difficult to estimate too highly the historical value of this Sutta. There can be no reasonable doubt that the very ancient tradition accepted by all Buddhists as to the substance of the discourse is correct, and that we really have in it a summary of the words in which the great Indian thinker and reformer for the first time successfully promulgated his new ideas. And it presents to us in a few short and pithy sentences the very essence of that remarkable system which has had so profound an influence on the religious history of so large a portion of the human race.
The name given to it by the early Buddhists—the setting in motion onwards of the royal chariot-wheel of the supreme dominion of the Dhamma—means, as I have shown elsewhere[3], not ‘the turning of the wheel of the law,’ as it has been usually rendered; but ‘the inauguration, or foundation, of the Kingdom of Righteousness.’
Is it possible that the praying wheels of Thibet have led to the misapprehension and mistranslation now so common? But who would explain a passage in the New Testament by a superstition current, say, in Spain in the twelfth century? And so when Mr. Da Cuñha thinks that the Dhamma is symbolised by the wheel, because ‘Gotama ignored the beginning, and was uncertain as to the end[4],’ he seems to me to be following a vicious method of interpreting such figures of speech. It cannot be disputed that the term ‘wheel’ might have implied such an idea as he puts into it. But if we want to know what it did imply, we must be guided wholly by the previous use of the word at the [ p. 141 ] time when it was first used in a figurative sense: and that previous use allows only of the interpretation given above. Perhaps, however, Mr. Da Cuñha is only copying (not very exactly) Mr. Alabaster, who has said, ‘Buddha, as I have tried to show in other parts of this book, did not attempt to teach the beginning of existence, but assumed it as a rolling circle of causes or effects. This was his circle or wheel of the law[5].’
Mr. Alabaster therefore calls his very useful book on Siamese Buddhism, ‘The Wheel of the Law;’—an expression which he on the first page of his preface takes to be about equivalent to Buddhism. But his theory of the meaning of the term seems to be based upon a misunderstanding of a passage in the Siamese ‘Life of Buddha,’ which he there translates. At page 78 he renders his text, ‘The Holy Wheel which the Law taught is plenteous in twelve ways,’ and he explains this on p. 169 as referring to the twelve Nidânas, the chain of causes and effects. But the passage in the Siamese text is evidently a reminiscence of the ‘twelvefold manner’ spoken of in the same connection in our Sutta (§ 21), and does not refer to the Nidânas at all.
A better comment on the word is the legend of the Treasure of the Wheel, which will be found below in the ‘Book of the Great King of Glory[6],’ a passage which shows that this figure belonged to that circle of poetical imagery which the early Buddhists so often borrowed from the previous poets of Vedic literature to aid them in their attempts to describe the most important events in the life of their revered Teacher. And, like the day of Pentecost by the early Christians, this Inauguration of the Kingdom of Righteousness was rightly regarded by them as a turning-point in the history of their faith. We find this even in the closing sections of our Sutta; and in later times the poets of every Buddhist clime have vied one with another in endeavouring to express their sense of the importance of the occasion.
‘The evening was like a lovely maiden; the stars [ p. 142 ] were the pearls upon her neck; the dark clouds her braided hair; the deepening space her flowing robe. As a crown she had the heavens where the angels dwell; these three worlds were as her body; her eyes were the white lotus flowers which open to the rising moon; and her voice was as it were the humming of the bees. To do homage to the Buddha, and to hear the first preaching of his word, this lovely maiden came.’ The angels (devas) throng to hear the discourse until the heavens are empty; and the sound of their approach is like the rain of a storm; all the worlds in which there are sentient beings are made void of life, so that the congregation assembled was in number infinite, but at the sound of the blast of the glorious trumpet of Sakka, the king of the gods, they became still as a waveless sea. And then each of the countless listeners thought that the sage was looking towards himself, and was speaking to him in his own tongue, though the language used was Mâgadhi!
It is most curious that this last figure should be so closely analogous to the language used with respect to the corresponding event in the history of the Christian church: and I do not know the exact source from which Hardy (Manual of Buddhism, p. 186) derives it. But I think it is highly improbable that there is any borrowing on the one side or on the other.
It cannot be denied that there is a real beauty of an Oriental kind in the various expressions which the Buddhists use; and that there was real ground for the enthusiasm which gave them birth. Never in the history of the world had a scheme of salvation been put forth so simple in its nature, so free from any superhuman agency, so independent of, so even antagonistic to the belief in a soul, the belief in God, and the hope for a future life. And we must not allow our estimate of the importance of the event to be influenced by our disagreement from the opinions put forth. Whether these be right or wrong, it was a turning-point in the religious history of man when a reformer, full of the most earnest moral purpose, and trained in all the intellectual culture [ p. 143 ] of his time, put forth deliberately, and with a knowledge of the opposing views, the doctrine of a salvation to be found here, in this life, in an inward change of heart, to be brought about by perseverance in a mere system of self-culture and of self-control.
That system, it will be seen, is called the Noble Path, and is divided into eight sections or divisions, each of which commences with the word sammâ—a word for which we have no real equivalent in English, though it has been rendered by such terms as ‘right,’ ‘perfect,’ and ‘correct.’ Our word ‘right,’ in some of its uses, would be a sufficiently adequate translation, but it is based on a different derivation, and connotes a set of ideas not alluded to by sammâ. If used as an adjective this word—signifying literally ‘going with’—means either ‘general, common,’ or ‘corresponding, mutual,’ and as an adverb, ‘commonly, usually, normally,’ or ‘fittingly, properly, correctly;’ and hence, in a secondary sense, and with allusion to both these ideas, ‘round, fit, and perfect, normal and complete.’ When used to characterise such widely different things as language, livelihood, and belief, the meaning of the term is by no means difficult to grasp; but it is difficult, if not impossible, to find any single English word which in each case would convey its full force without importing also some extraneous idea. From a desire to follow closely the Pâli form of expression I had first in my manual of ‘Buddhism’ adopted the one word ‘right’ throughout the translation of the text; and I have kept to this below, though I feel that that word quite fails to give the force of the preposition sam ({Greek sun-}, con-), which is the essential part of the Pâli sammâ. But I think the meaning of the Buddhist ideal, of the summary which is the most essential doctrine, the very pith of Buddhism, would be better brought out by a diversified rendering in the way I afterwards attempted in an article in the Fortnightly Review (No. CLVI); or, as above (p. 107), with the authorised interpretation appended. It would then run [ p. 144 ]
1. Right Views; free from superstition or delusion.
2. Right Aims; high, and worthy of the intelligent, earnest man.
3. Right Speech; kindly, open, truthful.
4. Right Conduct; peaceful, honest, pure.
5. Right Livelihood; bringing hurt or danger to no living thing.
6. Right Effort; in self-training, and in self-control.
7. Right Mindfulness; the active, watchful mind.
8. Right Contemplation; earnest thought on the deep mysteries of life.
It is interesting to notice that Gogerly, who first rendered sammâ throughout by correct[7], afterwards adopted the other method[8]; and as these eight divisions of the perfect life are of such vital importance for a correct understanding of what Buddhism really was, I here add in parallel columns his two versions of the terms used:—
| 1. Correct views (of truth). | Correct doctrines. |
| 2. Correct thoughts. | A clear perception (of their nature). |
| 3. Correct words. | Inflexible veracity. |
| 4. Correct conduct. | Purity of conduct. |
| 5. Correct (mode of obtaining a) livelihood. | A sinless occupation. |
| 6. Correct efforts. | Perseverance in duty. |
| 7. Correct meditation. | Holy meditation. |
| 8. Correct tranquillity. | Mental tranquillity. |
The varying expressions in these two lists are intended in all cases, (except perhaps the second,) to convey the same idea. The second division (sammâ-sankappo) is not really open to any doubt. Sankappo is will, volition, determination, desire; that exertion of the will in the various affairs of life which results from the feeling that a certain result will be desirable. The only variation in the meaning is that sometimes more stress is laid upon the implied exertion of the will, sometimes more stress upon the implied desire [ p. 145 ] which calls it into action. ‘Motive’ would be somewhat too impersonal, ‘volition’ too metaphysical a rendering; ‘aims’ or ‘aspirations’ seems to me to best express the sense intended in this passage.
In No. 7 (sammâ-sati) sati is literally ‘memory,’ but is used with reference to the constantly repeated phrase ‘mindful and thoughtful’ (sato sampagâno); and means that activity of mind and constant presence of mind which is one of the duties most frequently inculcated on the good Buddhist. Gogerly’s rendering of the term should have been reserved for the last division (sammâ-samâdhi), that prolonged meditation on the deep mysteries of life, which is stated in the Great Decease[9] to be the necessary complement and accessory to intelligence and goodness. Reason and works are good in themselves, but they require to be made perfect by that samâdhi which in Buddhism corresponds to faith in Christianity.
This Buddhist ideal of the perfect life has an analogy most instructive from a historical point of view with the ideals of the last pagan thinkers in Europe before the rise of Christianity, and of the modern exponents of what has been called fervent atheism. When after many centuries of thought a pantheistic or monotheistic unity has been evolved out of the chaos of polytheism,—which is itself a modified animism or animistic polydæmonism,—there has always arisen at last a school to whom theological discussions have lost their interest, and who have sought for a new solution of the questions to which the theologies have given inconsistent answers, in a new system in which man was to work out here, on earth, his own salvation. It is their place in the progress of thought that helps us to understand how it is that there is so much in common between the Agnostic philosopher of India, the Stoics of Greece and Rome, and some of the newest schools in France, in Germany, and among ourselves.
MS. Egerton, 794; bought from a bookseller named Rodel in 1839 ↩︎
Livraison, No. X. ↩︎
‘Buddhism,’ p. 45. ↩︎
‘Memoir on the Tooth Relic,’ &c., p. 15. ↩︎
‘Wheel of the Law,’ [ p. 288 ]. ↩︎
Chap. I, §§ 10-20. ↩︎
Journal of the Ceylon Asiatic Society, 1845. ↩︎
Ibid. 1865. ↩︎
Chap . I, § 12, and often afterwards. ↩︎