ABSTRACT
In one Buddhist tradition, notably preserved in the later East Asian Chan (= Japanese Zen) schools, the Buddha named one of his principal students, Maha-ka-s´yapa, as his successor. However, a rather different and influential tradition has it that the Buddha did not appoint a human successor and instead advised his students to rely on the teachings after he passed away: ‘It may be, Ananda, that to some among you the thought will come: “Ended is the word of the Master; we have a Master no longer.” But it should not, Ananda, be so considered. For that which I have proclaimed and made known as the Dhamma and the Discipline, that shall be your Master when I am gone’ (the Therava-da Maha-parinibba-na Sutta DN 16). Whatever the truth of the account, from the viewpoint of the Buddhist tradition from the earliest times, the Buddha’s teachings were considered the representative or even the embodiment of the Buddha. As we have seen in Chapter 1, Vakkali is reassured that personal meetings are not necessary because the Buddha and his teaching could be equated: ‘He who sees the Dhamma, sees me; he who sees me, sees the Dhamma’ (Vakkali Sutta SN 22.87). The preservation and continuity of what became known as Buddha
Word, or scripture, has always therefore been a vital task for the Buddhist community. In some ways, this was a similar legacy to that of the tenth Sikh
Guru, Guru Gobind Singh, in the early eighteenth century. In a context in which his own young sons had been killed and it was clear that any individual human guru was liable to be targeted, Guru Gobind Singh recognised the Sikh holy scriptures, along with the community, as his successor. The sacred status of the holy book was thus elevated to a new height, and worshipping and caring for the Guru Granth Sahib became a preoccupation of the Sikh community. One obvious difference between the two cases is that the eighteenth-
century Sikhs had a definite object to treat as their holy scriptures; Guru Gobind Singh had himself prepared an edition which became the basis for the later authorised version. In the early period of Buddhism after the Buddha’s passing, in contrast, a priority was to agree exactly what constituted the Dharma. In any case, it implied more than the scriptures alone, in the sense of the meaning of the teaching, the truth which is to be realised through the practice of the Path. The meditative traditions, and those of reclusive hermits, have tended to put their main efforts on realisation of the spirit rather than the letter of the teaching, and there is the idea, for instance in the Chan tradition (at least from the twelfth century CE), of representing a transmission outside the texts. But even in such cases, matters were rarely straightforward. The meditative currents often made use of texts, especially as part of meditative recitation practice, and also in the form of meditation handbooks and guidance notes.
