Early Buddhism

T. W. Rhys Davids

8 chapters · about 76 min

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The opening

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTORY

WTltODUCTOKV

Tie Sakiya Clan.—The founder of Buddhism was bom about 500 b.c. at Kapila-vastu, the principal town in the territory of the Sakiya clan, situate about one hundred miles nearly due north of Benares.

At that time the Aryan settlers along the lower slopes of the Himalaya range, and clown the valley of the Ganges, had reached a stage of political and social evolution very similar to that reached about the same lime in Greece. The country was politically split up into small communities, usually governed under republican institutions, some more aristocratic, some more democratic in character* But in four or five of these republics tyrants had succeeded in enforcing their power over their compatriots,and an irresistible tendency was leading to the absorption of all the small republics A in the neighbouring larger kingdoms. Thus the Sakiya clan was already under the suzerainty of the adjoining kingdom of Ivosala,

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  • Page numbers and running heads from the printed pages, in 19 places
  • Notes and pages added by translators, editors or publishers, in 12 places
  • The series half-title (“Religions Ancient and Modern / EARLY BUDDHISM”) (2 blocks)
  • The title page and opening pages before chapter 1
  • The book's title over the first chapter (“EARLY BUDl/HISM” as the OCR reads it)
  • The printer's colophon (“Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty at the Edinburgh University Press”)
  • Printer's signature mark at the foot of the page (“U”)
  • Printer's signature mark at the foot of the page (“I)”)
  • Printer's signature mark at the foot of the page (“E”)
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