the Musee Guimet, Paris.
viii
Foreword
by Paul Demieville
Member of the Institut de France,
Professor at the College de France
Director of Buddhist Studies at the School
of Higher Studies (Paris)
Here is an exposition of Buddhism conceived in a resolutely
modem spirit by one of the most qualified and enlightened
representatives of that religion. The Rev. Dr. W. Rahula received
the traditional training and education of a Buddhist monk in
Ceylon, and held eminent positions in one of the leading monastic
institutes (Pirivena) in that island, where the Law of the Buddha
flourishes from the time of Asoka and has preserved all its vitality
up to this day. Thus brought up in an ancient tradition, he decided,
at this time when all traditions are called in question, to face the
spirit and the methods of international scientific learning. He
entered the Ceylon University, obtained the B.A. Honours degree
(London), and then won the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the
Ceylon University on a highly learned thesis on the History of
Buddhism in Ceylon. Having worked with distinguished profes-
sors at the University of Calcutta and come in contact with adepts
of Mahayana (the Great Vehicle), that form of Buddhism which
reigns from Tibet to the Far East, he decided to go into the
Tibetan and Chinese texts in order to widen his cecumenism,
and he has honoured us by coming to the University of Paris
(Sorbonne) to prepare a study of Asanga, the illustrious philo-
sopher of Mahayana, whose principal works in the original
Sanskrit are lost, and can only be read in their Tibetan and Chinese
translations. It is now eight years since Dr. Rahula is among us,
wearing the yellow robe, breathing the air of the Occident,
searching perhaps in our old troubled mirror a universalized
reflection of the religion which is his.
The book, which he has kindly asked me to present to the
public of the West, is a luminous account, within reach of every-
body, of the fundamental principles of the Buddhist doctrine, as
ix
they are found in the most ancient texts, which are called 'The
Tradition' (Agama) in Sanskrit and 'The Canonic Corpus'
(Nikaja) in Pali. Dr. Rahula, who possesses an incomparable
knowledge of these texts, refers to them constantly and almost
exclusively. Their authority is recognized unanimously by all the
Buddhist schools, which were and are numerous, but none of
which ever deviates from these texts, except with the intention of
better interpreting the spirit beyond the letter. The interpretation
has indeed been varied in the course of the expansion of Buddhism
through many centuries and vast regions, and the Law has taken
more than one aspect. But the aspect of Buddhism here presented
by Dr. Rahula—humanist, rational, Socratic in some respects,
Evangelic in others, or again almost scientific—has for its support
a great deal of authentic scriptural evidence which he only had to
let speak for themselves.
The explanations which he adds to his quotations, always
translated with scrupulous accuracy, are clear, simple, direct, and
free from all pedantry. Some among them might lead to discussion,
as when he wishes to rediscover in the Pali sources all the
doctrines of Mahayana; but his familiarity with those sources
permits him to throw new light on them. He addresses himself to
the modern man, but he refrains from insisting on comparisons
just suggested here and there, which could be made with certain
currents of thought of the contemporary world: socialism,
atheism, existentialism, psycho-analysis. It is for the reader to
appreciate the modernity, the possibilities of adaptation of a
doctrine which, in this work of genuine scholarship, is presented
to him in its primal richness.
Preface
All over the world today there is growing interest in Buddhism.
Numerous societies and study-groups have come into being, and
scores of books have appeared on the teaching of the Buddha. It
is to be regretted, however, that most of them have been written
by those who are not really competent, or who bring to their task
misleading assumptions derived from other religions, which must
misinterpret and misrepresent their subject. A professor of com-
parative religion who recently wrote a book on Buddhism did
not even know that Ananda, the devoted attendant of the Buddha,
was a bhikk.hu (a monk), but thought he was a layman! The
knowledge of Buddhism propagated by books like these can be
left to the reader's imagination.
I have tried in this little book to address myself first of all to the
educated and intelligent general reader, uninstructed in the
subject, who would like to know what the Buddha actually
taught. For his benefit I have aimed at giving briefly, and as
directly and simply as possible, a faithful and accurate account of
the actual words used by the Buddha as they are to be found in
the original Pah texts of the Tipitaka, universally accepted by
scholars as the earliest extant records of the teachings of the
Buddha. The material used and the passages quoted here are taken
directly from these originals. In a few places I have referred to
some later works too.
I have borne in mind, too, the reader who has already some
knowledge of what the Buddha taught and would like to go
further with his studies. I have therefore provided not only the
Pali equivalents of most of the key-words, but also references to
the original texts in footnotes, and a select bibliography.
The difficulties of my task have been manifold: throughout I
have tried to steer a course between the unfamiliar and the
popular, to give the English reader of the present day something
which he could understand and appreciate, without sacrificing
anything of the matter and the form of the discourses of the
viii
Buddha. Writing the book I have had the ancient texts running
in my mind, so I have deliberately kept the synonyms and repeti-
tions which were a part of the Buddha's speech as it has come
down to us through oral tradition, in order that the reader should
have some notion of the form used by the Teacher. I have kept as
close as I could to the originals, and have tried to make my
translations easy and readable.
But there is a point beyond which it is difficult to take an idea
without losing in the interests of simplicity the particular meaning
the Buddha was interested in developing. As the title 'What the
Buddha Taught' was selected for this book, I felt that it would be
wrong not to set down the words of the Buddha, even the figures
he used, in preference to a rendering which might provide the
easy gratification of comprehensibility at the risk of distortion
of meaning.
I have discussed in this book almost everything which is
commonly accepted as the essential and fundamental teaching of
the Buddha. These are the doctrines of the Four Noble Truths,
the Noble Eightfold Path, the Five Aggregates, Karma, Rebirth,
Conditioned Genesis (Paticcasamuppada), the doctrine of No-Soul
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