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he himself propounded them ; what can be more natural than the 

 dying charge which he gave to his friend Ananda, and his other 

 accompanying disciples, a portion of which we shall now quote : — 



"Buddha, calling Ananda and all the Rahans, said to them : When I 

 shall have disappeared from the state of existence, and be no longer with 

 you, do not believe that the Buddha has left you and ceased to dwell 

 among you. You have the Thoots and Abidama which to you I have 

 preached ; you have the discipline and regulations of the Wini. The 

 law, contained in those sacred instructions, shall be, after my demise, 

 your teacher. By the means of the doctrines which I have delivered to 

 you, I will continue to remain among you. Do not therefore think or 

 believe that the Buddha has disappeared or is no more with you."* 



The above passage from the ' Mulla-linkara-wouttoo ' is from the 

 translation by Bp. Bigandet, a decided advocate of the oral pro- 

 pagation theory. The same passage, translated by an equally com- 

 petent scholar, is given below. Both translations, it will be seen, are 

 so rendered as to convey no suspicion whatever to the reader's mind 

 that the dying Buddha referred to a collection which existed solely 

 in the memories of his hearers, or otherwise than in writing. 



" Gaudama then called Ananda, and said, You suppose that when I am 

 gone there will be no Boodh : now this is not correct. I have given the 

 several books of the law, and those books, when I am gone, will be the 

 teacher ; therefore it will be wrong to say, We have no Boodh."f 



That Buddha felt the pressing need of such a charge on so 

 solemn an occasion is clear from several circumstances stated to have 

 happened just before his death; and the breath had scarcely passed 

 from his body, before the necessity of an appeal to the " law" was 

 made manifest to those to whom he had bequeathed the sacred trust. 



* Bigandet's Life of Gaudama, p. 315. 



f Life of Gaudama, translated by Rev. Chester Bennet, Missionary of the 

 American Baptist Union in Burma, published in vol. iii. of Amei\ Or. Soc. 

 Journal, 1853. 



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