CEYLON BRANCH ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY . 15 



speaking of him he says, epc3 qp^s^ss^^dS epcg453©)c33 



e)o gts^5^-3x©o3oe)o efatsDsseatf 353003 ©§^)o, at'ha annyataro sat- 

 to ayukk'haya wa puimyakk'haya wa ab'hassarakaya cha- 

 witwa : then a certain being, either from the fading away 

 of life, (the whole period of eight kalpas being ended) or 

 from the fading away of merit (not having had a sufficiency 

 of merit to secure his residence there throughout the entire 

 period) ceasing to exist among the inhabitants of abassara 

 &c. Had Gautama entertained the doctrine that some one 

 being was eternal, the parent of being, the source of exist- 

 ence, whether known as Adi Budha, or by any other name, 

 he would have mentioned him in the enumeration of the 

 doctrine of those who hold that some are eternal and others 

 not eternal. But he not only makes no reference to him, 

 but relative to the whole doctrine says " Some of these 

 Samanas and Bramins hold the eternal existence of some 

 things but that other things are not eternal, and in four 

 modes teach, concerning the soul and the world, that some 

 things are eternal and that other things are not eternal : but 

 certainly this is not the case ; they have merely stated the 

 things they have ascertained from experience." That is, 

 the facts they have stated are not controverted, but the 

 conclusions drawn by them from the facts are declared to 

 be incorrect. It is not, however, from detached passages 

 merely that Budha's opposition to this doctrine appears, but 

 the foundation of his system is es§)o ^^3©o sabban anitchan, 

 every thing is mutable. If this discourse is found among 

 the sacred books of Nepal, I think we are warranted in con- 

 cluding that the declaration that the Nepal school admits 

 the existence of a first cause must be founded on a mis- 

 apprehension of the doctrine. There are five books of doc- 

 trine called the Sutra Pitaka. The present sermon is the 

 first discourse in the first of these books, i. e. of the Dirg- 

 ga nikaya, and can easily be referred to, as there is reason 

 to believe that in the whole of India beyond the Ganges 

 the discourses of Budha are divided into the same portions 

 as we find in Ceylon. 



My second reason for selecting this discourse is, that it 

 contains an enumeration of the different schools of philo- 

 sophy existing in the time of Goutama, and from which 

 he dissented. They are enumerated as being 62. Of these 

 18 held doctrines respecting past and future existence, di- 

 vided into five classes. 



I. The doctrine of the eseseoesSoe, sassatawada who taught 



