INTRODUCTION.

and the Lalita-vistara Detailed Play (a biography of the Buddha), it can hardly be questioned that these works contain parts of very different dates, and derived from various sources. The material discrepancies between the version in prose and that in verse are occasionally too great to allow us to suppose them to have been made simultaneously or even by different authors conjointly at work1. Further it can be shown that the Mahâvaipulya great expansive Sûtras discourses are partially made up of such materials as must be referred to the oldest period of Buddhism. Let me adduce some examples to render more clear what I mean.

If we compare Lalita-vistara (Calc. ed.), p. 513, 13–p. 514, 2, with Mahâvagga Great Section (a portion of the Vinaya/monastic code) (ed. Dr. Oldenberg) I, 5, 2, we perceive that the passages are to a great extent literally identical, and that the variations amount to little more than a varietas lectionis variant reading.

The passage adduced is in prose ; now let us take some stanzas. In Mahâvagga I, 5, 3, the Lord utters the following ślokas verses/stanzas :

kikkhena me adhigatam halam dâni pakâsitum,
râgadosaparetehi nâyam dhammo susambudho.
patisotagâmi nipunam gambhîram duddasam anum
râgarattâ na dakkhanti tamokhandhena âvutâ.
Translation: "With difficulty have I attained this; it is difficult to proclaim now. By those overcome by passion and hatred, this Law is not easily understood. It is counter-flowing, subtle, profound, difficult to see, and minute. Those inflamed by passion do not see it, veiled as they are by a mass of darkness."

This does not materially differ from Lalita-vistara, p. 515, 16 seq. :

pratisrotagâmiko mârgo gambhîro durdriso mama,
na tam drakshya(n)ti² râgândhâ alam tasmât prakâsitum.
anusrotam pravâhyante kâmeshu patitâh pragâh ;
krikkhrena me’yam samprâptam(!) alam tasmât prakâsitum.
Translation: "The path is counter-flowing, profound, and difficult for me to see. Those blinded by passion will not see it; therefore, enough of proclaiming it. People fall into desires and are carried along by the stream; this was attained by me with difficulty; therefore, enough of proclaiming it."

Though there is some difference in the wording and arrangement of the verses, it is of such a kind as to exclude all idea of the compiler of the Lalita-vistara having composed the distichs himself. Even the words ayam dhammo susambudho and nipunam of the Pâli text were known to him, as appears from the passage in prose immediately preceding the ślokas quoted : gambhîrah

1 See e. g. the foot-note, p. 413.
2 An erroneous Sanskritisation of the present tense dakkhanti.