Some Sayings Of The Buddha: According To The Pali Canon

This is a little handbook of the sayings of the Buddha on various topics and at various times. Gautama Buddha was born more than 500 years before Christ and, like Christ, left no written record. From the oral tradition of his teachings, which was handed down by his disciples, we know with a high degree of accuracy the general principles which he sought to inculcate. This collection consists of passages from the Vinaya Pitaka, the four great Nikayas, Dhammapada, Itivuttaka, Udana and Sutta Nipata, etc., all based on the teachings of the Buddha wherein the great sage has been recorded as speaking in prose as well as verse, and from the KhuddakaPatha. Centuries before then the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita?works revered to this day in Europe as well as India?had been written. There were great oral traditions going back further still. Right in the blood of the Indian culture of Buddha?s time there must have been strains of preVedic culture dating from a time long before the Aryans had arrived in India, strains coming up from the Indus civilisation existing more than three thousand years B.C., and from a Ganges civilisation which must undoubtedly have existed contemporaneously with the Indus. The sayings are arranged under 18 subjects, among which arethe beginnings; the early order; teachings; stability of society; in time of sickness; charity; life, death and after; Devdatta; Buddha shows the way; Nibbana defined; last days, etc. This work was first published in 1940.