The vocabulary on the other hand is copious and for special purposes admirable.  The translator has to struggle continually with the difficulty of finding equivalents for words which, though apparently synonymous, really involve nice distinctions and much misunderstanding has arisen from the impossibility of adequately rendering philosophical terms, which, though their European equivalents sound vague, have themselves a precise significance.  On the other hand some words (e.g. dhamma and attho) show an inconveniently wide range of meaning.  But the force of the language is best seen in its power of gathering up in a single word, generally a short compound, an idea which though possessing a real unity requires in European languages a whole phrase for its expression.  Thus the Buddha bids his disciples be attadipa atta-sarana, ananna-sarana:  dhammadipa dhammasarana[619].  “Be ye lamps unto yourselves.  Be ye a refuge unto yourselves.  Betake yourselves to no external refuge.  Hold fast to the truth as a lamp.  Hold fast to the truth as a refuge.”  This is Rhys Davids’ translation and excellent both as English and as giving the meaning.  But the five Pali words compel attention and inscribe themselves on the memory in virtue of a monumental simplicity which the five English sentences do not possess.

But the feature in the Pali scriptures which is most prominent and most tiresome to the unsympathetic reader is the repetition of words, sentences and whole paragraphs.  This is partly the result of grammar or at least of style.  The simplicity of Pali syntax and the small use made of dependent sentences, lead to the regular alignment of similar phrases side by side like boards in a floor.  When anything is predicated of several subjects, for instance the five Skandhas, it is rare to find a single sentence containing a combined statement.  As a rule what has to be said is predicated first of the first Skandha and then repeated totidem verbis of the others.  But there is another cause for this tedious peculiarity, namely that for a long period the Pitakas were handed down by oral tradition only.  They were first reduced to writing in Ceylon about 20 B.C. in the reign of Vattagamani, more than a century and a half after their first importation in an oral form.  This circumstance need not throw doubt on the authenticity of the text, for the whole ancient literature of India, prose as well as verse, was handed down by word of mouth and even in the present day most of it could be recovered if all manuscripts and books were lost.  The Buddhists did not, like the Brahmans, make minute regulations for preserving and memorizing their sacred texts, and in the early ages of the faith were impressed with the idea that their teaching was not a charm to be learnt by heart but something to be understood and practised.  They nevertheless endeavoured, and probably with success, to learn by heart the words of the Buddha, converting