Several European students have adopted the same opinion, and, so far as I know, no argument has yet been advanced showing the impossibility of the native view, that some collection of Buddha's doctrines was made immediately after his death at Ragagaha, and that it was finally settled at what is called the Second Council, or the Council of Vesali. But what is not impossible is not therefore true, nor can anything be gained by appealing to later witnesses, such as, for instance, Hiouen Thsang, who travelled through India in the seventh century, and wrote down anything that he could learn, little concerned whether one statement tallied with the other or not[3]. He says that the Tipitaka was written down on palm leaves by Kasyapa at the end of the First Council. But what can be the weight of such a witness, living more than a thousand years after the event, compared with that, for instance, of the Mahavamsa, which dates from the fifth century of our era, and

[1. Bigandet, Life of Gaudama (Rangoon, 1866), p. 350; but also p. 120 note.

2. See Childers, s.v. Tipitaka. There is a curious passage in Buddhaghosa's account of the First Council. 'Now one may ask,' he says, 'Is there or is there not in this first Paragika anything to be taken away or added?' I reply, There is nothing in the words of the Blessed Buddha that can be taken away, for the Buddhas speak not even a single syllable in vain, yet in the words of disciples and devatas there are things which may be omitted, and these the elders who made the recension, did omit. On the other hand, additions are everywhere necessary, and accordingly, whenever it was necessary to add anything, they added it. If it be asked, What are the additions referred to? I reply, Only sentences necessary to connect the text, as 'at that time,' 'again at that time,' 'and so forth.'

3. Pelerins Bouddhistes, vol. i. p. 158.]

p. xiii tells us in the account of Mahinda's missionary journey to Ceylon (241/318), that the son of Asoka had to spend three years in learning the Tipitaka by heart from the mouth of a teacher[1]? No mention is then made of any books or MSS., when it would have been most natural to do so[2]. At a later time, during the reign of King Vattagamani[3] (88-76 B.C.), the same chronicle, the Mahavamsa, tells us that 'the profoundly wise priests had theretofore orally (mukhapathena) perpetuated the Pali of the Pitakattaya and its Atthakatha (commentary), but that at this period the priests, foreseeing the perdition of the people assembled, and in order that the religion might endure for ages, recorded the same in books (potthakesu likhapayum)[4].'