ON being asked to contribute a volume of translations from the Pâli Suttas to the important series of which this work forms a part, the contributor has to face the difficulty of choosing from the stores of a nearly unknown literature--a difficulty arising from the embarrassment, not of poverty, but of wealth. I have endeavoured to make such a choice as would enable me to bring together into one volume a collection of texts which should be as complete a sample as one volume could afford of what the Buddhist scriptures, on the whole, contain. With this object in view I have refrained from confining myself to the most interesting books--those, namely, which deal with the Noble Eightfold Path, the most essential, the most original, and the most attractive part of Gotama's teaching; and I have chosen accordingly, besides the Sutta of the Foundation of the Kingdom of Righteousness (the Dhamma-kakka-ppavattana Sutta), which treats of the Noble Path, six others which treat of other sides of the Buddhist system; less interesting perhan their subject matter, but of no less historical value.
