a good verbal memory; their genealogies, lists of kings and places generally prove to be correct and they have a passion for catalogues of names.  Also they take a real interest in describing doctrine.  If the Buddha has been misrepresented, it is not for want of acumen or power of transmitting abstruse ideas.  The danger rather is that he who takes an interest in theology is prone to interpret a master’s teaching in the light of his own pet views.

The Pitakas illustrate the strong and weak points of Hindu tradition.  The feebleness of the historical sense may be seen in the account of Devadatta’s doings in the Cullavagga[641] where the compiler seems unable to give a clear account of what he must have regarded as momentous incidents.  Yet the same treatise is copious and lucid in dealing with monastic rules, and the sayings recorded have an air of authenticity.  In the suttas the strong side of Hindu memory is brought into play.  Of consecutive history there is no question.  We have only an introduction giving the names of some characters and localities followed by a discourse.  We know from the Vinaya that the monks were expected to exercise themselves in remembering these things, and they are precisely the things that they would get rightly by heart.  I see no reason to doubt that such discourses as the sermon preached at Benares[642] and the recurring passages in the first book of the Digha-Nikaya are a Pali version of what was accepted as the words of the Buddha soon after his death.  And the change of dialect is not of great importance.  Asoka’s Bhabru Edict contains the saying:  Thus the good law shall long endure, which is believed to be a quotation and certainly corresponds pretty closely with a passage in the Anguttara-Nikaya[643].  The King’s version is Saddhamma cilathitike hasati:  the Pali is Saddhammo ciratthitiko hoti.  Somewhat similar may have been the differences between the Buddha’s speech and the text which we possess.  The importance of the change in language is diminished and the facility of transmission is increased by the fact that in Pali, Sanskrit and kindred Indian languages ideas are concentrated in single words rather than spread over sentences.  Thus the principal words of the sermon at Benares give its purport with perfect clearness, if they are taken as a mere list without grammatical connection.  Similarly I should imagine that the recurring paragraphs about progress in the holy life found in the early Suttas of the Digha-Nikaya are an echo of the Buddha’s own words, for they bear an impress not only of antiquity but of eloquence and elevation.  This does not mean that we have any sermon in the exact form in which Gotama uttered it.  Such documents as the Samannaphala-sutta and Ambattha-sutta probably give a good idea of his method and style in consecutive discourse and argument.  But it would not be safe to regard them as more than the work of compilers who were acquainted with the surroundings in which he lived, the phrases he used, and the names and business of those who conversed with him.  With these they made a picture of a day in his life, culminating in a sermon[644].