Path of Freedom [Vimuttimagga]

Introductionto The Buddhist, the journal of the Y.M.B.A., Colombo, and which was reprintedin the Buddha Jayanti of July 22, 1956, begins — The horse of Buddhismis dead in India; only the tops of the horse's ears are still visible in the eastand the west of the land'. This saying which had gained currency in Tibetonce, perhaps originated with the monk Vanaratana, known, in Tibetanhistory, as the last great Indian Mahdpandita who came to live and teachin Tibet. A native of Bengal, he was ordained young, as a sdmanera, in amonastery of one thousand monks. He received full ordination in Ceylon,with two well-known Theras, the Venerable Buddhaghosa and the VenerableDhammakitti as preceptor and teacher respectively. He studied the VinayaPrahhd (Splendour of the Discipline), a Sarvdstivdda work. Then he returnedto his native country and, after studying the Kdlacakra, went to Tibet by wayof Assam. The Lama says: "During the journey he is believed to haveremembered his Sinhalese preceptor, and inscribed on a wayside rock thesewords: 'I salute Buddhaghosa the teacher of thousands of beings' ". Andhe says further that in the middle of the seventeenth century the lama king ofBhutan, when at war with the Central Tibet government, had seen and mentionedit in one of his writings. On reaching Tibet his interpreter died, andso after a short stay there he returned to Bengal. "Vanaratana's secondvisit to Ceylon lasted six years; during that time he studied all branches ofBuddhism", says the lama. The Venerable Vanaratana in his account of apilgrimage he made to Sri Pada in Ceylon states that he received two bone relicsthere. Then again the lama goes on "to say, "With the relics and some books hehad collected, Vanaratana returned to his country and not long afterwards reenteredTibet. This time he was able to speak Tibetan well;he made many lamashis disciples through his preaching. The chief of Vanaratana's disciples wasRong-Thong-Pa, the founder of a new sect; to him Vanaratana gave one of therelics he had got in Ceylon. Rong-Thong-Pa built near Lhasa a monastery calledNalanda". The Venerable Vanaratana died fifteen years after he re-entered Tibet"at a monastery in Singpori in Tsang province; his tomb can still be seen in thatmonastery . . . The full admission of Vanaratana to the Sangha by Ceylontheras, and the long stay here, point to the existence of cordial relations betweenthe Indian and Ceylon Sangha of his time. Tibetan books show that RatnakaraGupta of Vikramasila stayed in Ceylon for seven years on his way toDhanyakataka; and Atisa (Diparhkara Sri Jnana), who became abbot of Vikramasila,was here in the eleventh century". Further, I myself remember thelate lama, when he was preparing this article, mentioning to the VenerableSoma Thera that he had seen in a monastery in Tibet a Sinhalese manuscriptwhich, he said, probably dated back to the Venerable Vanaratana Thera's time. 1In view of the above we are entitled to say that, while it is not provedthat the Vimuttimagga was written in Ceylon, it has been shown that the veryreasons put forward to support the view that it must have been written inIndia, support equally well the view that it may well have been written inCeylon. To this can be added the idea that the simile of the outcast havingno desire for a king's throne, possibly drew inspiration from the story ofSalirajakumara, which must certainly have been current at the time, though1. Since writing the above, the Ceylon Daily News reported, in its issue of September 9,1960, of the discovery of a Singhalese manuscript in a Buddhist monastery of Saiskyain Tibet by Prof. Rahula Sankrityayana of the Vidyalankara University, Kelaniya, in theyears between 1929 and 1938. This manuscript has been assigned to the twelfth, or thethirteenth, century and is now deposited in the library of the Vidyalankara University.XLI