What is the Khandhaka?
The Khandhaka (or Collections) forms part of the Vinaya Piṭaka, one of the three “baskets” of the Tipiṭaka. The Tipiṭaka is a large collection of teachings attributed to the Buddha or his earliest disciples. In the Pāli Canon, the Khandhaka contains stories of the Buddha’s life post enlightenment (excluding his death) framed around his establishment of various rules for ordaining and governing monastics in the saṅgha (community), and finishes with descriptions of the First and Second Councils, which were large formal gatherings intended to clarify or ratify the Buddha’s teachings.
Why study and translate the Khandhaka? Along with the other parts of the Vinaya, it may represent the earliest of Buddha’s teachings. Also, unlike the other piṭakas where we only have a complete preserved version from just one sect in Pāli, we possess the Vinaya of no less than six schools. According to Frauwallner - The Earliest Vinaya And The Beginnings Of Buddhist Literature (1956) (Frauwallner, 1956), these schools are:
- Sarvāstivādin (Chinese translation)
- Dharmaguptaka (Chinese translation)
- Mahīśāsaka (Chinese translation)
- Thēravada (Pāli)
- Mūlasarvāstivādin (Chinese and Tibetan translations, with some Sanskrit originals)
- Mahāsāṃghika (Chinese translation)
The Origin of the Khandhaka
As (Frauwallner, 1956) notes, the different versions of the Khandhaka are quite similar across all 6 versions, indicating that it was compiled or composed before the division of Buddhism into various sects. Frauwallner wrote:
The Skandhaka consist therefore of twenty sections, all of which occur with the four schools mentioned above. This agreement extends also to the contents of the sections. Many differences are indeed apparent in the arrangement and elaboration of the materials. But if we disregard all those differences which can be explained through corruption of the tradition or through re-elaboration in accordance with the bias of the several schools, no others are left but such as are characteristic of the free oral tradition of earlier times. The materials are the same, the inserted legends are the same, discrepancies are merely such as are bound to occur when several narrators tell the same story freely from memory.
Frauwallner theorises that these various schools of Buddhism may have originated as communities which were formed from the missions during the time of the emperor Aśoka. Therefore the different versions of Khandhaka are derived from a common origin in the “mother community” where these missions originated (which Frauwallner identifies as Vidiśā based on geographical position, archaelogical remains and Singhalese chronicles). Frauwallner dates the common origin of the Khandhaka to the version current at Vidiśā circa 250 BCE. Frauwallner claims it may have been common to other communities as well at that time, eg. Mathurā and therefore the composition and compilation of these texts may have been much earlier, perhaps as early as the date of the Second Council, or around 100 years after the Buddha’s death.
This makes the Khandhaka a fascinating window into possibly the earliest of Buddha’s teachings that is consistent across the various sects.
The Author of the Khandhaka
Frauwallner theorises that the Khandhaka may have written by a single individual. The highly organised and structured framework of the collection, as well as consistent literary style, all points to a single author. The author may have gathered various sources and weaved them into a single long narrative, and perhaps may have inserted original material to pad between the various sections to create a coherent whole. Frauwallner speculates that the author may have been formerly a brahmin, as the structure of the collection somewhat mirrors Vedic texts and the story of Buddha’s life is peppered with various brahmanical references and characters.
Frauwallner concludes:
We have to imagine the rise of the old Skandhaka work about on the following lines. In the 4 th century B. C. some outstanding specialist of the Vinaya undertook to collect in a definitive form the Buddhist monastic rules. He did not limit himself to collecting the material and giving it a clear arrangement, but tried also to put it in a form which would make his work the equal of the great Vedic texts. He placed the single precepts in the mouth of the Buddha, enlivened the exposition in the manner of the Brāhmaṇa texts through inserted legends and knitted the whole into a solid unity, by embedding it into the framework of a biography of the Buddha. Moreover, in order to bestow on his work the same sanctity as was attached to the Vedic texts which were attributed to the great seers of yore, he invented the legend of the first council, in which the foremost disciples of the Buddha were said to have collected in an authoritative form the words of the Master immediately after his death, and he led his work back to this collection through a list of teachers. In this way he created a work planned and executed on a large scale, which had no rivals in the Buddhist literature of the time and well deserved to be placed to the side of the Vedic texts, and even surpassed them by the logicity of its structure and by its striking framework.
Note from the above that Frauwallner believes the First Council is a fabrication by the author, who may have been present at the Second Council. Frauwallner also believes this author may have also composed the Mahāparinibbānasutta and that this and the Khandhaka were originally part of the same work, and later split.
In terms of the actual content of the Khandhaka, Frauwallner summarises:
The author had a rich and varied material available for his work. Firstly, collections of the monastic rules were already extant. This is no wonder, because a gigantic work like this is not created suddenly out of nothing. This material was already shaped into form and was, at least partly, enclosed into the frame of an instruction by the Buddha to his earliest disciples. He had also available narratives elucidating the Prātimokṣa, like those in the extant Vibhanga. Moreover, he could also draw from a rich Sutra tradition; he utilized Sutra which can be found in the extant canonical collections.
Can we then identify the sources that the author has drawn from, and in doing so identify the earliest suttas in the canon? Unfortunately, this is not so simple:
The account of the first council in Rājagṛha is preserved in all versions; it belongs to the old core of the Skandhaka work and in our opinion is an invention of the author of the Skandhaka. It relates the compilation of the canon of the sacred scriptures immediately after the death of the Buddha. This implies the existence of such a canon, because even if it is an invention, such an invention is possible only if at the time of its rise a canon was extant, of which it was desired to explain the formation. Another important fact is that this account gives sufficiently exact informations on the contents of the canon. But here the difficulties begin. These informations are different in each version, and correspond each time to the canon of the school concerned. This means that every school has inserted in the old account data which agreed with its own canon. This can be easily understood. It was an attempt to make it clear that the own canon was the same as that compiled on the first council. But it derives hence that these data are late and useless for our purpose. The only thing which interests us is to know what stood in the old Skandhaka work. But there is practically no chance of ascertaining it, because of the manipulations which the tradition has undergone in all the versions. We can only ascertain with a sufficient degree of certitude which of the canonical collections were mentioned in the old account. And with this we must be content.
Frauwallner’s conclusion:
At the time of the compilation of the old Skandhaka work about 100 years after the Nirvāna the Buddhist tradition had already reached an advanced stage of development. A collection of the sacred scriptures, including Dharma and Vinaya, was already in existence. The Vinaya included the Prātimokṣa, narratives of the type of the Vibhanga and much material on the monastic rules, which the Buddha was said to have communicated to his disciples. The collection of the Sutra, which existed on its side, was handed down by a regular machinery of transmission, and we can ascertain a number of texts which belonged to it already in that period.
On this basis the author of the Skandhaka created his work. In doing so he was inspired by the model of the Vedic collections, which he wished to confront with something of equal standing. He gathered the whole material on the Buddhist monastic rules into a great well-planned unity. Above all, he gave it a solid cohesion, by fitting it into the frame of a biography of the Buddha. He began with the life of the Buddha till his illumination and the gaining of the first disciples. Then he told step by step how the Buddha was induced to give to the monks the precepts which form the monastic rules. The bulkiness of the material limited him in many long passages to dry enumerations. In the intervals he tried again and again to subdivide and to enliven the whole through lengthy tales and inserted legends. At the end he narrated the death of the Buddha and the compilation of the sacred texts on a first council. A list of teachers was intended to witness the validity of the tradition and the credibility of the text. In his work he utilized everything out of the ancient tradition that appeared to him serviceable. He employed stories from the commentaries to the Prātimokṣa and included some Sutra texts, which he modified according to his needs. Above everything there stands his own accomplishment and his great, almost artistic power of formation. And thus he created a work which looks imposing, if we imagine it in its original shape, and which hardly found a match in his times: the first great literary work of Buddhism.
When was the Khandhaka written?
Based on Frauwallner’s hypothesis that the author fabricated the First Council but was present in the Second Council (given the seemingly realistic details in the account), he argues the work must have been created at the same time or just after the second council, which dates the Khandhaka to possibly 100-160 years after the Buddha’s death.
I am not entirely convinced by Frauwallner’s hypothesis. I agree that the author was a prominent figure in the Buddhist community, and most likely was born a brahmin and studied the Vedic texts. However, there is no direct evidence he was present at the Second Council.
In the Sri Lankan tradition (eg. from sources such as the Mahāvaṃsa), Moggaliputta-Tissa – who is patronised by Emperor Ashoka – sent out nine Buddhist missions to spread Buddhism in the “border areas” in c. 250 BCE. A part of this story is corroborated by archaeological evidence - three of the names of the monks mentioned in the Vinaya Nidana have been found inscribed on relic caskets found at Bhilsa (near Vidisha). These caskets are dated to the early 2nd century BCE.
I am inclined to place the work at roughly this time rather than earlier because as Bronkhorst points out in (Bronkhorst, 2007) that according to Patanjali the brahmins did not widely settle in the area east of the Ganges even a millennium after the time of the Buddha, so it would have been unlikely that Buddhism encountered a lot of opposition in terms of Brahmanism in the early days. However, it is likely the Vidiśā (Vidisha) community where the missions possibly originated from had encountered brahmins, and therefore the brahmanical references in the Khandhaka (and also in significant parts of Suttapiṭaka) could have been composed around this time.
Therefore, I think it’s more likely Khandhaka was specially commissioned for the purposes of creating a consistent Vinaya to be promulgated via the missions, or at least was revised for the occasion at this time (based on earlier versions). The author was probably part of the Vidiśā community and may even have been a leader of one of the missions.
Gavin Flood in “The Śaiva Traditions” (Flood, 2007) states: “the formation of Śaiva traditions as we understand them begins to occur during the period from 200 BC to 100 AD.” The Śaiva tradition focused on the worship of Shiva (Sanskrit: śiva) as the supreme being. The Khandhaka contains at least two references to Shiva worship - the encounter with the fire worshipping Kassapa brothers and their dreadlocked ascetic followers, and Angulimāla who Gombrich claims is a Shiva follower. This means it’s unlikely the Khandhaka could have been written too much earlier than 200 BCE. This further strengthens the possibility that the Khandhaka was specially commissioned to accompany the missions.
The character of the Buddha based on the Khandhaka
The entire Khandhaka is a fascinating insight into the supposed personality and character of the Buddha, in contrast to the sometimes quite different depictions of him elsewhere in the Buddhist canon. He is clearly a reticient and quiet man, notwithstanding the verses where he proudly proclaimed his liberation and in his conversations with Upaka and the 5 ascetics. He is a man who speaks the minimum necessary to get his point across. We can also see in the Khandhaka that he was unwilling to lead or set rules for the community, and most of the rules are portrayed as having been created out of necessity due to a desire for a harmonious and peaceful community, as direct responses to observed or reported non optimal behaviours or consequences.
The Buddha is also clearly a human being, and not omniscient, in the Khandhaka. He makes mistakes, he adjusts the rules, he failed to foresee the consequences of some of his rules, he was unable to foresee enough of the future to prevent major incidents such as the dispute at Kosambi or Devadatta’s actions.
In the Mahaparinibbana, we learn that the Buddha wished for some of the “minor” rules espoused in the Khandhaka to be abolished after his death, but in the First Council the participants could not agree which were the minor rules the Buddha was thinking about, so they ended up keeping all the rules. This is an indication that none of the 500 arahants present at the First Council were omniscient either.
More importantly, the Buddha was prone to illness, frustration (at perceived misbehaviours in the community), and he needed food, rest and sleep like all of us. Again, unlike suttas where the Buddha is depicted as a Perfect, Omniscient Being with 32 great marks or features, here he is simply an ordinary man, with imperfections. This is a strong indication that the Buddha’s liberation was a mundane realisation, from a rational thought process, and was not a spiritual or mystical attainment.
Focus - the Buddha’s biography from awakening until his death
Given the above, I would like to initially focus on Sections 1-14 of the Khandhaka in the Pāli canon, where as I mentioned previously contains a “biography” of the Buddha from the moment he achieved liberation under the Bodhi tree at Uruvella, up to the conversion of Sariputta and Moggallana, two of the Buddha’s greatest disciples.
This is an important phase in the Buddha’s life, during which he acquired his initial disciples and proved the success of his teaching in achieving liberation for his disciples. He also established a community consisting of both monastics and laypeople, and the rest of the Khandhaka describes the rules for this community and also for introducing new members to that community.
These sections of the Khandhaka also introduces the first three major discourses of the Buddha, and gives us the best possible indication of his teaching style as well as the content of his teaching in the early days.
Whilst some scholars have debated whether these were in fact his early teachings, I think we can assume that during the time of the missions in Emperor Aśoka’s reign at least, and prior to the schisms and the division into the different sects, all Buddhists agreed that these represent his earliest teachings (although the different sects may have variations of these discourses). We could argue that perhaps they arrived at their present forms as part of a consolidation and ratification effort prior to the missions, followed by later elaboration by each missionary community that eventually evolved into different sects. Even today, I don’t think any Buddhist would mount a serious claim that these do NOT represent the Buddha’s teachings, regardless of whether they believe any of the subsequent sectarian material in the suttas and Abhidhamma.
I also note that the Khandhaka gave multiple examples of disciples (including lay people) who were able to achieve realisation from these early discourses, and therefore there is sufficient information in these discourses to achieve the liberating insight.
It is particularly important that these early discourses do not mention meditation, the so called divine or higher knowledges, discussions regarding the elements and sense bases, the factors to enlightenment, the stages to becoming an arahant, precepts, and many other elements of Buddhism that are to be found in the Suttapiṭaka. Furthermore, the thought process around contemplating dependent origination requires a conscious mind, and therefore the Buddha was unlikely in a meditative state when he achieved realisation. Therefore, I conclude all these concepts and elaborations are later additions and quite possibly not originated by the Buddha himself.
It is tempting to use the evidence from the First Council to assert that some of these additional concepts would have been been present then, and advance the hypothesis that the Buddha expanded upon his teachings throughout his life and therefore it is quite plausible he would have introduced these concepts later, beyond the events from the early discourses.
However, Frauwallner argues the First Council is a fabrication of the author of the Khandhaka, and in any case the text has been altered by each sect so that they can claim their texts represent the original teachings from the First Council. So about the only thing we can conclude even if we believe in the First Council is that the Abhidhamma was added after the First Council, and the original texts might have been just the Vinaya rules and some suttas.
In fact, some scholars would even argue there may not have been any suttas during the First Council, in the way we would recognise them today, and what Ānanda may have recited was simply a set of lists, ie. dependent origination, the eightfold path, the four noble truths, the 5 khandhas etc. Therefore even the structure and content of the early discourses in the Khandhaka may have been fabrications, either by the author of the Khandhaka or those before him.
This would explain why the early discourses seem to be quite short of details of the specific path and techniques that will lead to liberation, which have presumably led many Buddhists since to “expand” on the initial list and created all the additional material that is present in the Tipiṭaka. For example, even the eightfold path is not explained in detail in the Khandhaka, so we have no confirmation of what right view, etc. really meant beyond just the words.
This somewhat undermines the supposition that the early discourses were “sufficient” to result in liberating insight. And indeed, many Buddhists do believe exactly that - the early discourses are not sufficient, and need to be supplemented by additional concepts and teachings, hence the diversity of the various sects and teachings today.
All this makes the content of the early discourses in the Khandhaka even more critical. They represent the purest, most original form of the Buddha’s teachings that we can determine with any degree of certainty. Arguably, everything else could be a fabrication or expansion.
My hypothesis, which I will expand upon in a future set of articles, is that the information in the early discourses were indeed sufficient for the liberating insight and the gaining of realisation, and ultimately liberation. I do not believe the Buddha taught a prescriptive path towards liberation, he merely articulated the key points of the soteriology and it is up to each individual to gain realisation and final liberation in accordance to their personal circumstances.
What about the period before the Buddha’s awakening?
Buddhists are probably familiar with various aspects of the Buddha’s life. His parents, his lineage, his birth, early childhood, his motivation for renouncing etc.
There are many accounts, such as the Mahavastu, Lalitavastra, etc. that provide an elaborate account of the Buddha’s life, his previous lives, all the worthy things he did, etc.
The problem is that all these accounts seem like elaborate fabrications, given the rather different portrayal we see in the Khandhaka and the discrepancies across the texts. Moreover, many of these accounts are sectarian. In other words, unlike the Khandhaka, there is no universally agreed understanding of the Buddha’s early life and his lineage.
This is understandable if we perceive the Buddha’s nature to be quiet and reticient, as discussed above. He would probably have been unwilling to talk about his personal life prior to awakening, and if asked he may perhaps answer that those details are irrelevant. However, this has not stopped many Buddhists from wishing they know the Buddha better, and therefore the temptation to create devotional texts extolling the Buddha was altogether too strong.
Therefore, I will not focus on the Buddha’s birth and early life, as they are not as relevant or verifiable as the contents of the Khandhaka.
Postscript
I hope I have articulated enough reasons to be interested in, or even obsessed about, the Buddha’s biography and early discourses in the Khandhaka, which is why I have chosen to focus on translating Sections 1-14 initially.