If AHA Y ANA BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 



271 



when we remember that even the Sacred Books of the 

 Southern or Pali Canon were not (apparently) committed to 

 writing until about eighty years B.C.,* and that a long period 

 must be allowed to account for the development of the legends, 

 theories, and accretions which distinguish the Mahayana or 

 Sanskrit Canon from the teaching found in the Southern, it is 

 evident that the Northern books must be much later in date. 

 One of the Sanskrit works of the Northern Canon, the Lalita- 

 vistara, has been the subject of much discussion as to the date 

 of its composition. Sir M. Monier- Williams thinks that the 

 bookf is " Probably as old as the second century of our era."J 

 This work was, it is said, early translated into Chinese. But it 

 is admitted that this "first" version, if ever made, is no longer 

 extant : and an examination of Beal's Romantic History 

 (which in p. 387 claims to be a version of the Lalita-vistara, 

 though it is elsewhere said to be a translation of the 

 Mahavastu, of the Foundation of the Yinaya Pitaka, and of 

 the Abhinishkramana-Siitra) suffices to show how extremely 

 unreliable such Chinese statements are. Beal himself states 

 that the same name was in Chinese given to different works, 

 and as an example of expansion gives, from Dharmaraksha's (?)§ 

 version of the Mahaparinibbana-Sutta, an expanded account of 

 Chanda's conversation with Buddha near Kusinara (Beal's 

 translation of the " Fo-sho-hing-tsan-king," pp. 365, sqq.). We 

 know the date of the Chinese versions of some books : for 

 instance, the Chinese translation of The Awakening of Faith 

 was finished on September 10th. a.d. 554. || A great deal of 

 Buddhist literature was translated early in the fifth century. IT 



The Awakening of Faith is used as a text-book for the 

 teaching of Buddhist priests in China. It is doubtless a 

 translation from a Sanskrit original, called the Sraclclhotpada- 

 sdstra, the original of which has not yet been found. The work 

 may have been correctly rendered into Chinese, without 

 addition or omission, but, if so, it differs very considerably in 



* Max Miiller, Slv Systems of Indian Philosophy, p. 5. 

 + Buddhism, pp. 69, 70. 



X See the age of the Lalita-vistara discussed in Professor Rhys Davids' 

 Hibbert Lectures, pp. 198-204. 



§ Or Dharinakshara. || Suzuki's verskm, p. 39. 



IF Comparison of the Chinese " versions " with the original Sanskrit 

 (where the latter still exists, as in the Buddha-carita) shows how 

 inaccurate these versions are, and how freely they have admitted 

 additions from other sources. They are thus rendered wholly useless for 

 scientific purposes, unless confirmed by the Sanskrit text in each case. 



