26 The Early History of Buddhist Literature

  

231 During the Buddha's long  and  successful career,  he delivered many thousands of discourse using diverse  teaching styles. Sometimes he simply delivered a talk,  perhaps ending  by summing up the talk's main theme in a verse,  sometimes he used dialogue,  employing striking  analogies  or  similes to clarify his point.

These discourses, sayings and verses were remembered by those who heard them and  passed on to others,  so that towards the end of the Buddha's career a huge body of  oral teaching  was in circulation.  Although writing was known at this time,  no attempt was made to commit the Buddha's discourses to writing because  the ancient Indians considered memory  to be  more reliable than the copyist's  pen and more durable  than  palm leaf books.

In fact,  long before  the time of the  Buddha,  the  ancient Indians had developed and perfected techniques of  preserving literature in the memory to an extraordinary degree.    

232   When the Buddha attained final Nirvana in Kusinara, one of his senior disciples,  Maha Kassapa,  and a group of other monks were on their way to  Kusinara to meet the Buddha,  not having as yet heard that he had passed away. They met wandering ascetic who told them that the Buddha had died some  days before.  When they heard this some of the monks began to cry,but one, called Subhadda, who had become a monk late in life,said:        

Enough friends, do not weep or cry .  We are lucky     

to be rid of the  great  recluse.  He  was  always     

bothering us by saying: "It is fitting for you  to     

do this,  it is not fitting for you to do  that ."     

Now we can do or not do what we like.       

Maha Kassapa realized that if there were  enough  monks

like Subhadda,  disagreements about what the Dhamma was would

soon arise.  So it was decided  that  three months  later,  a

great meeting would be held where five hundred Arahats  would

discuss  the Buddha's teachings,  give them a structure,  and

then  recite them together and commit  them  to memory.  This

great  meeting  book took place  at  the  Sattapanna Cave  in

Rajagaha, and came to be known as the First Council. When the

council  convened,  Maha Kassapa addressed the  five  hundred

assembled Arahats, saying:                                  

Come,  your reverences,  let us recite the  Dhamma     

and the  Discipline  before  what  is  not  Dhamma     

shines out and what is Dhamma is obscured,  before     

what is not Discipline  shines  out  and  what  is     

Discipline is obscured,  before  those  who  speak     

what  is not Dhamma become strong  and  those  who     

speak what is Dhamma become weak, before those who     

speak  what is not.  Discipline become strong  and     

those who speak what is Discipline become weak.  

The assembly chose Upali  to recite the rules for  monks  and nuns because it was a field  he was an expert in,  and Anandawas chosen to recite the discourses because,  having been the Buddha's  attendant and constant companion for twenty  years, he had heard more than anyone else.  Parts of the  discussion took the form of  Maha Kassapa  putting questions of  Ananda.        

"Where, reverend Ananda,  was the Brahmajala Sutta     

spoken?"       

"Honoured sir, between Rajagaha and Nalanda in the     

royal rest-house at Ambalatthika."       "With whom? "       

"Suppiya the wandered and Brahmadatta the  Brahmin     

youth."       

Then  Maha Kassapa  questioned  Ananda  about  the     

theme and details of the Samannaphala Sutta.       

"Where, reverend Ananda,  was the Samannaphala Sutta spoken? "

"In Rajagaha, in Jivaka's mango grove."       

"With whom ? "       

"With Ajatasattu, the son of the Videhan lady."        

In this way he questioned him about the  five  Nikayas,and  constantly  questioned,  Ananda answered.  Ananda  would commence  answering the  questions about  each  discourse  by saying: " Thus have I heard" (evam me sutam), in the sense of" this is what I remember hearing",  and  so most  discoursesstart with these words.                                 

233   For the next few centuries,  the Dhamma  was  carefully recited,  remembered  and passed on to others,  and  although this was a task usually done by the monks and nuns,  there is much  evidence  that  both laymen and laywomen also knew  the Dhamma by heart and played a part in its transmission.  

In the scriptures,  we read of a woman reciting parts of  the Samyutta Nikaya. In some ancient inscriptions dating from the 3rd century BC,  the names of some lay persons are  mentioned together with their titles which `reciter of Dhamma' (dhammakathika),  `a knower of a Basket' (petakin),  ` a knower of a discourse'  (suttantika)  and  `a knower  of  the  Five Collections'  (pancanekayika).  

About a hundred years after the  Buddha,  there  was  another major council where seven hundred leading monks met together,initially to discuss some disagreements  concerning  monasticrules,  but after this issue was resolved,  they recited  the whole  of the  Dhamma together.  This was called the  Second Council, and took place in Vesali.

Then about 230 years after the Buddha,  King Asoka convened a Third Council  in his capital at Pataliputta,  and once again the whole of the Dhamma was recited.  It was probably at this council  that  it  was  decided to include the books  of  the Abhidhamma as the third part of the Buddhist scriptures.

  

It is also probable that the Dhamma was committed to  writing for the first time,  although there is no existing record  of this  being done until the  year  50 BC  in  Sir Lanka  where Buddhism had spread by that time.  From this time  onwards, the Buddhist scriptures were written in books  made  of  palm leaves, birch bark, silk, and finally in more recent times on paper. Thus have the words of the Buddha,  "beautiful in the  beginning,  beautiful in the middle,  and beautiful  at the  end", been carefully passed down to us.