a later chapter and here will
merely say that the Pali works called Vinaya or monastic rules and
Suttas[294] or sermons recount the circumstances in which each rule was
laid down and each sermon preached. Some narrative passages, such as the
Sutta which relates the close of the Buddha's life and the portion of
the Vinaya which tells how he obtained enlightenment and made his first
converts, are of considerable length. Though these narratives are
compilations which accepted new matter during several centuries, I see
no reason to doubt that the oldest stratum contains the recollections of
those who had seen and heard the master.

In basing the following account on the Pali Canon, I do not mean to
discredit Sanskrit texts merely because they are written in that
language or to deny that many Pali texts contain miraculous and
unhistorical narratives[295]. But the principal Sanskrit Sutras such as
the Lotus and the Diamond Cutter are purely doctrinal and those texts
which profess to contain historical matter, such as the Vinayas
translated from Sanskrit into Chinese, are as yet hardly accessible to
European scholars. So far as they are known, they add incidents to the
career of the Buddha without altering its main lines, and when the
accounts of such incidents are not in themselves improbable they merit
consideration. On the whole these Sanskrit texts are later and more
embellished than their Pali counterparts, but it is necessary not to
forget the existence of this vast store-house of traditions, which may
contain many surprises[296].

Though the Pali texts do not give the story of the Buddha's life in a
connected form, they do give us details about many important events in
it and they offer a picture of the world in which he moved. The idea of
biography was unknown to the older Indian literature. The Brahmanas and
Upanishads tell us of the beliefs and practices of their sages, the
doctrines they taught and the sacrifices they offered, but they rarely
give even an outline of their lives. And whenever the Hindus write about
a man of religion or a philosopher, their weak historical sense and
their strong feeling for the importance of the teaching lead them to
neglect the figure of the teacher and present a portrait which seems to
us dim and impersonal. Indian saints are distinguished by what they
said, not by what they did and it is a strong testimony to Gotama's
individuality and force of character, that in spite of the cen