THE materials for this book are drawn ultimately that is from the Pali writings of Ceylon and Burma, to say, they are to be found in palm-leaf manuscripts of those countries, written in the Singhalese or Burmese alphabet, as the case may be, but always in the same Pali language, a tongue very nearly akin to the Sanskrit. These Pali writings furnish the most authoritative account of The Buddha and his Doctrine that we have; and it is therefore to be regretted that, inasmuch as so little has been known in the Occident until recently of either Pali or Pali literature, the information of the public concerning Buddhism has been so largely drawn from books based on other, non-Pāli, sources, on works written in the Singhalese, Chinese, and Tibetan languages, and in the Buddhist-Sanskrit of Nepaul. But a large number of Pali manuscripts have now been edited and printed in the publications of the Pali Text Society of London, and in scattered works both in England and in other European countries, and several volumes of translations into English have appeared, so that all excuse for not deriving our knowledge of Buddhism.
from the most authentic sources is fast disappearing. As the work on this book has been done wholly in America, my main reliance has naturally been on printed texts. Still, I have had the use of a number of Pali manuscripts. In Brown University at Providence, Rhode Island, there are many manuscripts, in the Burmese character, of works belonging to the Buddhist Scriptures. These were presented by the Rev. Dr. J. N. Cushing, Baptist missionary to Burma, and an alumnus of the University. But the manuscripts which, as being both important and unedited, have proved of most value to me, are four copies of the extensive and systematic treatise on Buddhist Doctrine composed by the famous Buddhaghosa, who flourished in the fourth century A. D. It is called the "Way of Purity" (in Pali, Visuddhi-Magga). These four manuscripts have come to me from England: one is from the private collection of Prof. T. W. Rhys Davids, Secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society; the second belonged to the late Rev. Dr. Richard Morris of Harold Wood, Essex; the third to Henry Rigg, Esq., consulting engineer to the Government of India, for railways; while for the loan of the fourth, a Burmese manuscript, my thanks are due to the India Office Library.
The Pali literature chiefly consists of the Buddhist Scriptures and their commentaries. These form an extensive body of works, many of which are individually very large. The Singhalese canon proper that is to say, the texts without the commentaries has been estimated by Prof. Rhys Davids to contain about twice as much matter as the Christian Bible. From this estimate Professor Davids excludes the repetitions, which, as he well says, are "some of them very frequent, and others very long." The Christian Bible is divided into two Testaments, whereas the Buddhist canon, or Bible, has three main divisions called "Baskets" (in Pāli, Pitaka), and the Buddhist Bible, consequently, is called "The Three Baskets" (Ti-Pitaka).
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