GENERAL INTRODUCTION

TO THE

BUDDHIST SUTTAS.

ON being asked to contribute a volume of translations from the Pâli a Middle Indo-Aryan language Suttas discourses 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 path to the cessation of suffering, the most essential, the most original, and the most attractive part of Gotama's the historical Buddha teaching; and I have chosen accordingly, besides the Sutta of the Foundation of the Kingdom of Righteousness (the Dhamma-kakka-ppavattana-Sutta Discourse on setting the Wheel of Truth in motion), 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.

These are—

1. The Book of the Great Decease (the Mahâ-parinibbâna-Suttanta Great Discourse on the final passing away), which is the Buddhist representative of what, among the Christians, is called a Gospel.
2. The Foundation of the Kingdom of Righteousness (the Dhamma-kakka-ppavattana-Sutta), containing the Four Noble Truths, and the Noble Eightfold Path which ends in Arahatship the state of a perfected person.