5

As mentioned above, our Pali Canon is the recension of the Vibhajjavadins.  We know from the records of the Chinese pilgrims that other schools also had recensions of their own, and several of these recensions—­such as those of the Sarvastivadins, Mahasanghikas, Mahisasakas, Dhammaguttikas, and Sammitiyas—­are still partly extant in Chinese and Tibetan translations.  These appear to have been made from the Sanskrit and fragments of what was probably the original have been preserved in Central Asia.  A recension of the text in Sanskrit probably implies less than what we understand by a translation.  It may mean that texts handed down in some Indian dialect which was neither Sanskrit nor Pali were rewritten with Sanskrit orthography and inflexions while preserving much of the original vocabulary.  The Buddha allowed all men to learn his teaching in their own language, and different schools are said to have written the scriptures in different dialects, e.g. the Mahasanghikas in a kind of Prakrit not further specified and the Mahasammatiyas in Apabhramsa.  When Sanskrit became the recognized vehicle for literary composition there would naturally be in India (though not in Ceylon) a tendency to rewrite books composed in other dialects[647].  The idea that when any important matter is committed to writing it should be expressed in a literary dialect not too intelligible to the vulgar is prevalent from Morocco to China.  The language of Bengal illustrates what may have happened to the Buddhist scriptures.  It is said that at the beginning of the nineteenth century ninety per cent, of the vocabulary of Bengali was Sanskrit, and the grammatical construction sanskritized as well.  Though the literary language now-a-days is less artificial, it still differs widely from the vernacular.  Similarly the spoken word of the Buddha was forced into conformity with one literary standard or another and ecclesiastical Pali became as artificial as Sanskrit.  The same incidents may be found worked up in both languages.  Thus the Sanskrit version of the story of Purna in the Divyava-dana repeats what is found in Pali in the Samyutta-Nikaya[648] and reappears in Sanskrit in the Vinaya of the Mulasarvastivadin school.

The Chinese Tripitaka has been catalogued and we possess some information respecting the books which it contains, though none of them have been edited in Europe.  Thus we know something[649] of the Sarvastivadin recension of the Abhidhamma.  Like the Pali version it consists of seven books of which one, the Jnana-prasthana by Katyayaniputra, is regarded as the principal, the rest being supplementary.  All the books are attributed to human authors, and though some of these bear the names of the Buddha’s immediate disciples, tradition connects Katyayaniputra with Kanishka’s council.  This is not a very certain date, but still the inference is that about the time of the Christian era the contents of the Abhidhamma-Pitaka were not rigidly defined and a new recension was possible.