![]() ![]() Southern Buddhists are passionately devoted to these Pali Scriptures and are inclined to disparage and dispute the more philosophical scriptures of the Northern School that developed later after Buddhism had come in contact with other world religions in Persia, Palestine, Egypt and Greece. That was the earliest collection and was supposed to be limited to the words of Buddha. The nearest approach to canonicity is the Pali Tripitika. ![]() In the Sung Dynasty about 972 AD a Chinese version of these scriptures was published consisting of 1521 works, in more than 5000 volumes, covering 130,000 pages. ![]() In the Christian Bible there are sixty-six titles Buddhist scriptures number over ten thousand, only a fraction of which have thus far been translated. In the third place, there is the difference of quantity. The Dharma, some have to do with the rules of the Brotherhoods, some are philosophical, some psychological, some are commentaries and some are commentaries on commentaries. Some of these expediences are of highest value, some of less value. As disciples follow the Buddha's Noble Path and practice dhyana concentration and intuitive meditation they have an unfolding experience of spiritual insight and grace which any one of them may describe and elucidate. Buddhism, on the contrary, is looked upon as a growing organism whose scriptures are of many kinds as the organism has developed under different racial, temporal and cultural conditions. In the second place, Christian Scriptures are a closed system of doctrines and dogmas that have been inspired by the Holy Spirit and are to be accepted in faith. In the first place, there is no Hierarchy or Ecclesiastic Council to pass upon the authenticity of different scriptures, and as to their canonicity. The compiling of a Buddhist Bible is a very different matter from compiling the Christian Bible. We are also indebted and are very grateful to a number of other Buddhist Scholars for permission to use their translations, as noted in the Appendix. This involved making a number of new translations for which we are indebted to Bhikshu Wai-tao. When the need of a new edition became evident, it was decided to enlarge it so as to include other Scriptures of like importance so as to make it more comprehensive. The first edition of this Buddhist Bible was published in 1932. What follows is Goddard's preface to the book. Thus this work would have been one of the few English publications at the time to mention buddha-nature by name. This early Western publication on Buddhism includes mention of the concept of buddha-nature 19 times. ![]()
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