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Though a fool, through all his life, associated with a wise man, he no more understands the Dhamma than a spoon (tastes) the flavour of soup.Dhammapada (Bala Vagga)

A lost Buddhist literary tradition found

by Peter Monaghan

The Gandhari canon may prove to be a crucial link in understanding the way Buddhism moved northward along the Silk Road, into Central and East Asia, even as it largely died out in India, where it was born in the fifth or fourth century BC. "We're putting this language on the map of major languages of the ancient world, which it really was," says Richard G. Salomon, a Professor of Asian languages and Sanskrit and the director of the British Library-University of Washington Early Buddhist Manuscripts Project.

Salomon is in charge of reconstructing, decoding, and publishing a collection of manuscripts of a kind that he and his colleagues feared they would never live to see. Until recently, concrete evidence of the Gandhari tradition consisted of a single manuscript, discovered in 1892 and published 70 years later as The Gandhari Dharmapada (Oxford University Press), edited by the late University of Cambridge scholar, John Brough.

Specialists knew that other manuscripts existed. In the 1830s, for example, one French archaeologist wrote of finding some, "but when they touched them, they literally crumbled in their hands," says Graham W. Shaw, the director of the British Library's Oriental and India Office Collections.

Although no other substantial Gandhari manuscript had come to light, Salomon was among a handful of researchers who studied the language, from the Brough edition, from secular documents in a related language, and from inscriptions on pots, coins, and archaeological ruins. Salomon specialized in those arcane inscriptions, which are in Kharosthi, a script based on the Aramaic alphabet.

In 1994, his preparation paid off when he was contacted by officials at the British Library, who had acquired a collection of what appeared to be many more Gandhari-dialect manuscripts written in Kharosthi.

An anonymous donor had given the library 29 extremely fragile and brittle fragments of manuscript on birch-bark rolls. "Paper and velum are like cast iron by comparison," says Shaw. "The sheer fact that any kinds of manuscripts on this material have survived is a miracle."

Library experts and Salomon determined that the manuscripts dated from the first century AD, and that made them the oldest known Buddhist manuscripts anywhere, and the oldest Indic manuscripts known to have survived.

Judging by comparisons with other artifacts and by comments in travellers' and early archaeologists' journals, . Salomon deduced that the manuscripts probably had been found in a jar in a cave near Jalalabad in what is now eastern Afghanistan, close to the ancient region of Gandhara.

Gandhara was the seat of a series of powerful dynasties from the third century BC to the fourth century AD. Well-known from abundant archaeological remains, it was a crossroads of cultural influences from India, the West, China, and East Asia, and a melting pot of Greeks, descendants of Scythian invaders from the North, and many others.

Archaeological remains and other evidence show that it was also an important centre of Buddhism. "It only stood to reason that there'd be a literary component of that culture," says Salomon. "Some of the pieces were in place, and now the literary language falls right into place, too."

Salomon, whose curly hair and heavy spectacles make him appear rather more bookish than swashbuckling, visibly winces as he takes stock of how long it has taken for the tradition to emerge. "Many Gandhari manuscripts were destroyed, lost, thrown out," he says. "Believe it or not, they were not recognized as valuable objects, even by scholars - certain archaeologists - who should have known better."

The British Library collection has grown from 29 to 57 fragments, and to triple its original volume, with the addition of other groups of manuscripts that were sitting unidentified in private collections. They include sermons, tales, and commentaries, many of which are well-known from other Buddhist literary traditions.

One such find - eight small, contiguous fragments, making a piece about the size of a page from a standard paperback, from a large commentary on the benefits of meditation - has just been acquired by the University of Washington Libraries, while the other manuscripts are at the British Library. Because the documents are so fragile, the Washington researchers study digital and photographic images of them.

To date the manuscripts, researchers have used such techniques as comparing their contents with inscriptions on coins, and names or events mentioned in other texts. Similar sleuthing suggests that the Kharosthi scrolls came from the library of a Gandharan monastery of the Dharmaguptaka sect of Buddhists; that they date from the first century AD; and that they were found in modern-day northern Pakistan or eastern Afghanistan.

Even though the Gandharan finds predate all other Buddhist holdings, the tradition links up with the other strains of Buddhism in "very complicated, messy ways" that do not tell any straightforward historical tale, Salomon explains. "In a way, that's disappointing.

But that's a superficial reaction. Then it's daunting. And then it's exciting. It really does shake things up."

The manuscripts also throw light on the way that Buddhist tradition was transmitted. "Oral transmission had been the preferred or normal way - memorization, recitation, and so forth," says Salomon. "What we're now finding out is that, in the first and second century AD, the notion of writing things down took off in a big way."

His allusion is to the Dead Sea Scrolls, and their importance in understanding early Christianity and its Judaic roots.

Scholars in the broad field of Indic studies generally agree that the comparison of the two writings, which date from the same time, is apt. Salomon concurs, but he adds, referring to the famous squabbles that have bogged down the publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls: "From the beginning, I've structured this project's strategies to be the exact opposite to the Dead Sea Scrolls.

That entails actually doing research and publishing it, rather than dickering around for 40 years, or whatever they were doing."

Setting a brisk pace by academic-publishing standards, the project has released one major volume a year since 1999 in a series from the University of Washington Press.

Achieving that efficiency - even publishing the texts at all - is a matter of old-fashioned "philological slogging," says Salomon. "Technology helps, but the bottom line is knowing the words and the letters and the languages and the cultures." He knows 12 ancient and modern languages.

Sotaapanna : as an army general

by A.G.S.Kariyawasam

The title given here might be baffling to some. But in Buddhist India there was an army commander (senaapati) by the name of Seeha who was in charge of the fighting forces of the Licchavi Republic. At the beginning he was a strong supporter of the Niganthas led by Mahaaveera. As the Buddha's fame began to spread fast Seeha could not resist the urge to pay him a visit despite the hostile propaganda carried against the Buddha by the Niganthas.

Accordingly he went to see Him accompanied by a large entourage seeking clarification for some problems he had encountered. The Buddha answered them to Seeha's entire satisfaction resulting in the General declaring himself a fully convicted follower of the Buddha by reciting the formulas of Thisarana and Panchaseela. This was followed by a further catechistic session at the conclusion of which Seeha became a sotaapanna attaining to the first stage of Buddhist sainthood.

Here an interesting point emerges as Seeha continued to remain as the Commander in Chief of the Licchavi army in his role as a professional military man despite his becoming a Sotaapanna. Neither the Buddha did request him to resign from his post or to disband the army. Instead he advised him to act with responsibility befitting his high position.

This indicates that the Buddha accepted the raajabhata, "the royal soldier", as an army cadre was designated in Buddhist literature, as any other state official, who is duty bound to discharge his duties with devotion. Buddhism recommends a way of life wherein inter-community peace is of prime concern. It upholds and unfolds a lifestyle intended for the ethical furtherance of the quality of life aimed at conflict-free living.

One is expected to lead a spiritually ennobling life for the sake of oneself and others, with the realisation of Nibbanic freedom as the ultimate aim. Hence war is abhorrent to Buddhism and has to be avoided at all costs. Yet, at times, in this profane world infested as it is with cravings, selfishness, ambition etc., war also becomes a 'necessary evil' when a nation is threatened with an external threat like an enemy attack. Such a situation demands a passively necessitated fighting in self-defence to save one's mother-country. Thus war, however unwelcome, becomes a necessity as long as (ad infinitum) conflicts remain part and parcel of social dealings.

In Buddhist India there were fighting armies consisting of the four divisions of elephants, chariots, cavalry and infantry, the well-known chaturanga senaa. The provincial political units of the country at the time known as the sixteen mahaajanapadas like Kosala, Magadha etc. had their own armies as also did the parochial kings like Suddhodana. The Buddha never spoke against them but accepted them as mandatory adjuncts of a country's administration.

The necessity of a well-trained and a disciplined army for a country has been always accepted by the Buddha. He himself was from the Kshatriya caste for whom military training was a must. As such he himself was a well-trained military man during his lay days as was proved by his 'display of skills' to his doubting relatives whether he actually possessed that training. The references to military personnel and connected matters in his discourses clearly indicate that the battle-field was quite a familiar place to him. He cites army discipline as well as indiscipline as instances of comparison in his instructions to his disciples comparing them to soldiers fighting in a battle-field as in the Akkhama Sutta of the Anguttara Nikaya (A. III, 157 PTS).

The Buddha has laid down a Vinaya rule that no soldier should enter monkhood as a bhikkhu without resigning or retiring from the army as military men at the time had got into the habit of secretly deserting their posts and entering the Order, resulting in the depletion of military cadres. Serving in the armed forces as a profession has not been included among the five forms of livelihood declared unrighteous and as such unfit for a Buddhist. Bhikkhus have been permitted to visit the battle-field to attend to their related ones when they get injured and maimed, provided they return to their temples before nightfall.

The foregoing discussion shows clearly that fighting as a professional soldier does not prevent a person from remaining a good Buddhist.

The case of General Seeha itself is sufficient evidence for this. The interesting moot point in this context is whether the killings perpetrated by a soldier in defending his motherland bring about the same degree of unwholesome fruit (akusala-vipaaka) to him as in the case of a criminal murder in violation of the first precept of the panchaseela. Cannot there be a mitigation of the soldier's akusala in view of his basic intention (cetanaa) of saving his motherland which really is the measure deciding the nature of an action, both kusala and akusala? Many authorities on Buddhism seem to hold the view that such a soldier's praana-ghaata akusala is of the same degree as of ordinary criminal murder? How come?

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