The Questions of King Milinda, Part II: Introduction

Mr. Bunyiu Nanjio in his Catalogue of Chinese Buddhist Books 1 mentions a Chinese book called Nâ-sien Pikhiu Kin (that is 'The Book of the Bhikshu Nâgasena' Sûtra) 2. I have been so fortunate as to receive detailed information about this book both from Dr. Serge d'Oldenbourg in St. Petersburg and from M. Sylvain Lévi in Paris. Professor Serge d'Oldenbourg forwarded to me, in the spring of 1892, a translation into English (which he himself had been kind enough to make) from a translation into Russian by Mr. Ivanovsky, of the Chinese Introduction, and of various episodes in the Chinese which seemed to differ from the Pâli. This very valuable aid to the interpretation of the Milinda, which the unselfish courtesy of these two Russian scholars intended thus to place at my disposal, was most unfortunately lost in the post; and I have only been able to gather from a personal interview with Professor d'Oldenbourg that the Introduction was a sort of Gâtaka story in which the Buddha appeared as a white elephant 3.

By a curious coincidence this regrettable loss has been

1 The Korean book gives much less of the matter contained in our books II and III than the later work in the Sung collection, the former containing only 13,752 characters while the latter has 22,657. In the matter of the order of the questions also the later of the two Chinese books follows much more closely the order found in the present translation than does the work found in the Korean collection.

This paper has since been published in the Proceedings of the Congress 2, and it gives translations of several episodes on questions in which the Chinese is said to throw light on the Pâli. Both M. Specht and M. Sylvain Lévi seem to think that the two Chinese books were translations of older recensions of the work than the one preserved in Pâli. This argument does not seem to me, as at present advised, at all certain. It by no means follows that a shorter recension, merely because it is shorter, must necessarily be older than a longer one. It is quite as possible that the longer one gave rise to the shorter ones.

1. He says, 'La science ne connaissait jusqu'ici de cet ouvrage qu'un texte écrit en Pâli et incorporé dans le canon Singhalais?' Now there is, accurately speaking, no such thing as a Sinhalese canon of the Buddhist Scriptures, any more than there is a French or an English canon of the Christian Scriptures. The canon of the three Pitakas, settled in the valley of the Ganges (probably at Patna in the time of Asoka), has been adhered to, it is true, in Ceylon, Burma, and Siam. But it cannot properly be called either a Ceylonese or a Burmese or a Siamese canon. In that canon the Milinda was never incorporated. And not only so, but the expression used clearly implies that there is some other canon. Now there has never been any other canon of the Buddhist Scriptures besides this one of the three Pitakas. Many Buddhist books, not incorporated in the canon, have been composed in different languages--Pâli, Sanskrit, Chinese, Tibetan, Japanese, Sinhalese, Burmese, Siamese, &c.--but no new canon, in the European meaning of the phrase, has ever been formed.

One meets occasionally, no doubt, in European books on Buddhism allusions or references to a later canon

1, there is no mention at all of any new canon having been settled. The account is long and detailed. An occurrence of so extreme an importance would scarcely have escaped the notice of the Chinese writer. But throughout the account the canonicity of the three Pitakas is simply taken for granted. The members of the Council were chosen exclusively from those who knew the three Pitakas, and the work they performed was the composition of three books--the Upadesa, the Vinaya Vibhâshâ, and the Abhidharma Vibhâshâ. The words which follow in the Chinese have been differently interpreted by the European translators. Julien says:

'They (the members of the Council) thoroughly explained the three Pitakas, and thus placed them above all the books of antiquity 2.'

Beal, on the other hand, renders:

'Which (namely, which three books) thoroughly explained the three Pitakas. There was no work of antiquity to be compared with (placed above) their productions 3.'

It is immaterial which version best conveys the meaning of the original. They both clearly show that, in the view of Yuan Thsang, the Council of Kanishka did not establish any new canon. Since that time the rulers of China, Japan, and Tibet have from time to time published collections of Buddhist books. But none of these collections even purports to be a canon of the Scriptures. They contain works of very various, and some quite modern, ages and authors: and can no more be regarded as a canon of the Buddhist Scriptures than Migne's voluminous collection of Christian books can be called a new canon of the Christian Scriptures.

1 to the fact that M. Sylvain Lévi has added another service to those already mentioned as rendered by him to the interpretation of the Milinda, by a discussion of the reference to our book in the Abhidharma-kosa-vyâkhyâ, referred to in my previous Introduction, p. xxvi. This discussion was published in a periodical I have not seen 2. But it seems that M. Lévi, with the help of two Chinese translations, has been able to show that the citation is not only in the commentary, but also in the text, of Vasubandhu's work. M. Léon Feer has been kind enough to send me the actual words of the reference, and they will be found published in the 'Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society' for 1991, p. 476.

Professor Serge d'Oldenbourg has also been good enough to point out to me that the two Cambridge MSS. of Kshemendra's Bodhisattvâvadâna-kalpalatâ read Milinda (not Millinda as given by Râjendra Lâl Mitra 3) as the name of the king referred to in the 57th Avadâna, the Stûpâvadâna. I had not noticed this reference to the character in our historical romance. It comes in quite incidentally, the Buddha prophesying to Indra that a king Milinda would erect a stûpa at Pâtaligrâma. There is no allusion to our book, and the passage is only interesting as showing that the memory of king Milinda still survived in India at the time when Kshemendra wrote in the eleventh century A.D.

Another reference to one of the characters in the Milinda

msa:

This quotation is very interesting. It follows that in the original text of the Attha Sâlinî there is something about the Vattaniya Hermitage. And also that the author of this Tîkâ must have had before him some text of our Mahâvamsa differing from ours, or perhaps some other Mahâvamsa. For the lines quoted do not occur in our text. The nearest approach to them is one line in the description of the assembly that came together at the consecration of the Mahâ Thûpa at Anurâdhapura in the year 157 B.C. It runs 1:

'The thera Uttara came up bringing with him sixty thousand Bhikshus from the Vattaniya Hermitage [not Uttania Temple as Turnour translates] in the Vindhya Desert.'

The resemblance of the passages is striking. But all

1, of the missionaries sent out nearly a hundred years before, by Asoka, will show that the names in the second list are in great part an echo of those in the first. But in selecting well-known names, Mahânâma in his second, fabulous, list has, according to the published text, also included that of the Vattaniya Hermitage, and, according to the new verse in the other text, has associated with that place the name of Assagutta, not found elsewhere except in the Milinda. In that book the residence of Assagutta is not specified--it is his friend Rohana who lives at the Vattaniya, and the locality of the Vattaniya is not specified--it would seem from the statement at I, 25 (part i, p. 20 of this translation) that it was a day's journey from 'the Guarded Slope,' that is, in the Himâlayas. But geographical allusions are apt to be misleading when the talk is of Bhikshus who could fly through the air. And it seems the most probable explanation that the authors of these verses, in adopting these names, had the Milinda story in their mind.

[Turnour's reading of the name as Uttara, and not Assagutta, is confirmed by the Dîpavamsa, chap. XIX, verses 4-6, where all the fourteen names of the visitors from India are given (without any details as to the districts whence they came), and the corresponding name is also Uttara there.]

1. It is precisely this question which forms also the subject of the very first discussion between Milinda and Nâgasena, the conversation leading up to the celebrated simile of the chariot by which Nâgasena apparently convinces Milinda of the truth of the orthodox Buddhist view that there is really no such thing as a 'soul' in the ordinary sense 2. On leaving the sage, the king returns to his palace, and the next day the officer who escorts Nâgasena there to renew the discussion, occupies the time to raise again the same question, and is answered by the simile of the musicians 3. Not content with these two expositions of this important doctrine, the author of the Milinda returns again soon afterwards to the same point, which he illustrates by the simile of the palace 4, and further on in the book he takes occasion to discuss and refute the commonly held opinion that there is a soul in inanimate things, such as water 5.

It cannot be doubted that the authors of the Kathâ Vatthu and the Milinda were perfectly justified in putting this crucial question in the very forefront of their discussion--just as the Buddha himself, as is well known, made it the subject of the very first discourse he addressed to his earliest converted followers, the Anatta-lakkhana Sutta, included both in the Vinaya and in the Anguttara Nikâya 6.

The history of ideas about the 'soul' has yet to be

1,' holds that the first persons attacked in this list are the followers of the Sânkhya. The double view of the Sassata-vâdâ is no doubt the basis of the Sânkhya system. But the system contains much more, and it would be safer to say that we have here a warning against the philosophical view which afterwards developed into the Sânkhya, or rather which became afterwards a fundamental part of the Sânkhya. The Vedânta, in either of its forms, is not, it will be noticed, referred to in any one of the sixty-two divisions; but philosophical views forming part of the Vedânta may be traced in Nos. 5, 8, 10, 20, &c. The scheme is not intended as a refutation of the views, as a whole, held by any special school or individual, but as a statement of erroneous views on two special points, namely, the soul and the world. However this may be, we find an ample justification in this comprehensive and systematic condemnation of all current or possible forms of the soul-theory for the prominence which the author of the Milinda gives to the subject.

The other points on which the Milinda may be compared with the Kathâ Vatthu will need less comment. The discussion in the Milinda as to the manner in which the Divine Eye can arise in a man 2, is a reminiscence of the question raised in the Kathâ Vatthu III, 7 as to whether the eye of flesh can, through strength of dhamma, grow into the Divine Eye. The discussion in the Milinda as to

1, is entirely in accord with the opinion maintained, as against the Uttarâpathakâ, in the Kathâ Vatthu IV, i. Our Milinda ascribes the verses,

to the Buddha 2. In the note on that passage I had pointed out that they are ascribed, not to the Buddha, but to Abhibhû in certain Pitaka texts, and to the Buddha himself only in late Sanskrit works. In the exposition of Kathâ Vatthu II, 3 the verses are also ascribed to the Buddha. The proposition in the Kathâ Vatthu II, 8 that the Buddha, in the ordinary affairs of life, was not transcendental, agrees with Nâgasena's argument in the Milinda, part ii, pp. 8-12. The discussion in the Milinda as to whether an Arahat can be thoughtless or guilty of an offence 3 is foreshadowed by the similar points raised in the Kathâ Vatthu I, 2; II, 1, 2, and VIII, 11. And the two dilemmas, Nos. 65 and 66, especially as to the cause of space, may be compared with the discussion in Kathâ Vatthu VI, 6, as to whether space is self-existent.

The general result of a comparison between these two very interesting books of controversial apologetics seems to me to be that the differences between them are just such as one might expect (a) from the difference of date, and (b) from the fact that the controversy in the older book is carried on against members of the same communion, whereas in the Milinda we have a defence of Buddhism as against the outsider. The Kathâ Vatthu takes almost the whole of the conclusions reached in the Milinda for granted, and goes on to discuss further questions on points of detail. It does not give a description of Arahatship in glowing terms, but discusses minor points as to whether the realisation of Arahatship includes the Fruits of the three lower paths 4, or whether all the qualities of an Arahat are free from the Âsavas 5, or whether the knowledge of his

1, or whether the breaking of the Fetters constitutes Arahatship, and whether the insight into Arahatship suffices to break all the Fetters 2, and so on.

The discussion of these details gives no opportunity for the enthusiastic eloquence of the author of our Milinda, and the very fact of his eloquence argues a later date. But there can be no doubt as to the superiority of his style. And I still adhere to the opinions expressed in the former Introduction that the work, as it stands in the Pâli, is of its kind (that is, as a book of apologetic controversy) the best in point of style that had then been written in any country; and that it is the masterpiece of Indian prose.

T. W. RHYS DAVIDS.

TEMPLE,
May, 1894.

Footnotes

xi:1 Called on the title-page 'Catalogue of the Chinese Translation of the Buddhist Tripitaka.' But this must surely be a mistake. It includes a number of works which are not translations at all, and translations of a large number of others which do not belong to the Pitakas.

xi:2 No. 1358 in the Catalogue. Translated under the Eastern Tsin Dynasty, 317-420.

xi:3 As there is nothing about this curious Introduction in either of M. Specht's papers to be mentioned immediately, it seems possible that there are really three Chinese books on the same subject.

xii:1 It would be very interesting to have this point decided; namely, whether the volume in the India Office Library is identical with either of the two very different books in Paris. If not, we have, then, still another Chinese book on Milinda.

xii:2 Vol. i. pp. 520-529.

xv:1 'Transactions of the Ninth International Congress of Orientalists,' vol. i, p. 518.

xvi:1 Julien's translation, vol. i, pp. 173-178, and Mr. Beal's own translation, i, 147-157. There are two or three incidental references to the Council in other works. See my 'Buddhism,' p. 239.

xvi:2 St. Julien, 'Voyages des Pèlerins Bouddhistes,' vol. i, pp. 177, 178.

xvi:3 Beal, 'Buddhist Records of the Western World,' vol. i, p. 155.

xvii:1 In the 'Revue de l'Histoire des Religions' for 1893 (which has only just reached me), p. 258.

xvii:2 The 'Comptes rendus des Séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres,' 1893, p. 232.

xvii:3 'Nepalese Buddhist Literature,' p. 60.

xviii:1 Chapter XXIX, p. 171, of Turnour's edition.

xviii:2 Turnour has Vattaniyâ-senâsanu.

xix:1 Turnour, pp. 1-73

xxi:1 Kathâ Vatthu I, 1.

xxi:2 Milinda, i, pp. 40-41.

xxi:3 Milinda, i, p. 48.

xxi:4 Milinda, i, pp. 86-89.

xxi:5 Milinda, ii, pp. 85-87.

xxi:6 Vinaya Texts (S. B. E. XIII), part i, pp. 100, 101, and Anguttara Nikâya.

xxv:1 Introduction, p. 57.

xxv:2 Milinda, i, pp. 179-185.

xxvi:1 Milinda, ii, pp. 96-98 (compare 57-59).

xxvi:2 Milinda, ii, p. 60.

xxvi:3 Milinda, ii, pp. 98 foll.

xxvi:4 Kathâ Vatthu IV, 9.

xxvi:5 Kathâ Vatthu IV, 3.

xxvii:1 Kathâ Vatthu V, 1.

xxvii:2 Kathâ Vatthu V, 10, and X, 1.