[Y-Indology] Devadatta & Prior Buddhas

[Guest guest]

Yashwant Malaiya wrote:

 

> What happend to Devadatta and his followers?

There is a detailed article studying Devadatta -- Max Deeg "The Sangha of

Devadatta: Fiction and History of a Heresy in the Buddhist Tradition"

(Journal of the International College of Buddhist Studies / Vol II March

1999 / pp183-218)

 

> Surprizingly when Fa Hien was in India in 5th cent CE, there was

> still a group of monks who were followers of Devadatta, and not

> Siddhartha!

 

In general, most scholars are dubious about this -- there may have been

monks who thought they were followers of Devadatta but this does not mean

that there was an unbroken linage going back to him.

As an aside, pls note that Fa-xian (or Fa-hsien) is the correct orthography

for the Chinese pilgrim's name -- what you have given is based on an old

defunct French romanization system. Similarly, for the later great Chinese

pilgrim, Xuan-zang is preferable to Yuan-chwang and all the other peculiar

romanizations one often sees in works published in India.

 

Best wishes,

Stephen Hodge