ropean practice, it is not altogether happy, for the Chinese
thesaurus is not analogous to the Pali Canon or to any collection of
sacred literature known in India, being in spite of its name arranged
in four, not in three, divisions. It is a great _Corpus Scriptorum
Sanctorum_, embracing all ages and schools, wherein translations of
the most diverse Indian works are supplemented by original
compositions in Chinese. Imagine a library comprising Latin
translations of the Old and New Testaments with copious additions from
the Talmud and Apocryphal literature; the writings of the Fathers,
decrees of Councils and Popes, together with the _opera omnia_ of the
principal schoolmen and the early protestant reformers and you will
have some idea of this theological miscellany which has no claim to be
called a canon, except that all the works included have at some time
or other received a certain literary or doctrinal hall-mark.

1

The collection is described in the catalogue compiled by Bunyiu
Nanjio.[709] It enumerates 1662 works which are classified in four
great divisions, (_a_) Sutra, (_b_) Vinaya, (_c_) Abhidharma, (_d_)
Miscellaneous. The first three divisions contain translations only;
the fourth original Chinese works as well.

The first division called Ching or Sutras amounts to nearly two-thirds
of the whole, for it comprises no less than 1081 works and is
subdivided as follows: (_a_) Mahayana Sutras, 541, (_b_) Hinayana
Sutras, 240, (_c_) Mahayana and Hinayana Sutras, 300 in number,
admitted into the canon under the Sung and Yuan dynasties, A.D.
960-1368. Thus whereas the first two subdivisions differ in doctrine,
the third is a supplement containing later translations of both
schools. The second subdivision, or Hinayana Sutras, which is less
numerous and complicated than that containing the Mahayana Sutras,
shows clearly the character of the whole collection. It is divided
into two classes of which the first is called A-han, that is,
Agama.[710] This comprises translations of four works analogous to the
Pali Nikayas, though not identical with the texts which we possess,
and also numerous alternative translations of detached sutras. All
four were translated about the beginning of the fifth century whereas
the translations of detached sutras are for the most part earlier.
This class also contains the celebrated Sutra of Forty-two Sections,
and works like the Jataka-nidana. The second class is styled Sutras of
one