Author: T W Rhys Davids
Translator(s): T W Rhys Davids
Publisher: Sri Satguru Publications
Year: 2003
Language: English
Pages: 368
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8170307511
Description
On being asked to contribute a volume of translations from the Pali Suttas to the important series of which this work forms a part, the contributor has to face the difficulty of choosing from the stores of a nearly unknown literature-a difficulty arising from the embarrassment, not of poverty, but of wealth. I have endeavoured to make such a choice as would enable me to bring together into one volume a collection of texts which should be as complete a sample as one volume could afford of what the Buddhist scriptures, on the whole, contain.
With this object in view I have refrained from confining myself to the most interesting books-those, namely, which deal with the Noble Eightfold Path, the most essential, the most original, and the most attractive part of Gotama’s teaching; and I have chosen accordingly, besides the Sutta of the foundation of the Kingdom of Righteousness (the Dhamma-kakka-ppavattana-Sutta), which treats of the Noble Path, six others which treat of other sides of the Buddhist system; less interesting perhaps in their subject matter, but of no less historical value.
The Discipline of the Buddhist Mendicants, the Rules of their Order - probably the most influential, as it is the oldest, in the world - with be fully described, down to its minutest details, in the translation of the Vinaya Pitaka, which will appropriately form a subsequent part of this subject in the present volume: but of the rest of the matters discussed in the Buddhist Sacred books-of Buddhist legend, gospel, controversial theology, and ethics-the works selected will I trust give a correct and adequate, if necessarily a somewhat fragmentary, idea.
Contents
GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE BUDDHIST SUTTAS.
1. The book of the great decease (Maha-Parinibbana Suttanta).
2. The foundation of the kingdom of righteousness (Dhamma-Kakka-Ppavattana Sutta).
3. On knowledge of the Vedas (Tevigga Suttanta).
4. If he should desire (Akankheyya Sutta).
5. Barrenness and bondage (Ketokhila Sutta).
6. Legend of the great king of glory (Maha-Sudassana Suttanta).
7. All the Asavas (Sabbasava Sutta).
INDEX
Transliteration of oriental alphabets adopted for the translations of the sacred books of the East.