CHAPTER XVII.

BUDDHIST LITERATURE.

Buddhist libraries presented to monasteries by emperors--Ch'eng-tsu, of the Ming dynasty, was the first to print the entire series of the Buddhist accepted books--Prajna paramita, eighty times as large as our New Testament--The Pei-tsang, or second printed edition, dates from the sixteenth century--The Kia-hing edition of the Pei-tsang--Division into King, Lu, Lun--First Council--Work of Ananda--The Mahayana of Northern Buddhism--Council of Cashmere--Authors of the Mahayana--Lung- shu wrote the Hwa-yen-king--Contrasts between the primitive and Mahayana books--List of translators A.D. 70 to A.D. 705--Sixteen hundred works are classified, inclusive of those by Chinese authors--On the councils for settling the canon--Translations by Burnouf and others--Lotus--Book of Forty-two Sections--Character of this and other early works--Stories illustrative of ancient life--Fan-wang-king--Chan-tsi-king translated by Beal--Pratimoksha.

THE first fixing of the Buddhist canon was at the Councils of Rajagriha and Pataliputra. The Northern and Southern Buddhists held together till the Council of Pataliputra, under Ashoka. When an immense missionary development followed on the meeting of this Council, the separation was a natural result, because of the vast extent of country over which Buddhism shortly became the prevalent religion.

The origin of the primitive Buddhist books which are Common to the Northern and Southern Buddhists is, then, anterior to B.C. 246; and the addition to the canon of the Mahayana books containing the legends of Kwan-yin and of the Western heaven with its Buddha, Amitabha, was

also previous to the Council of Cashmere, a little before the beginning of our era.

When the first books were translated into Chinese from Sanscrit, it was before the time of the introduction of paper. Bamboo tablets were still employed, and they were painted on with a brush. Paper-making soon came into use, and in the fourth century the present system of Chinese writing was fully in use. From that time till the invention of printing, seven hundred years later, copies of the sacred books would be made from time to time in the monasteries. As in countries where the palm grows the monks have continued to write on the palm-leaf, so in China, till printing was known, transcribed copies of all needed books would be made and preserved in monasteries.