165. Q. In the whole text of the three Pitakas how many words are there?
A. Dr. Rhys-Davids estimates them at 1,752,800.
166. Q. When were the Pitakas first reduced to writing?
A. In 88-76 B.C., under the Sinhalese King, Wattagamini, or three hundred and thirty years after the Paranirvāna of the Buddha.
167. Q. Have we reason to believe that all the discourses of the Buddha are known to us?
A. Probably not, and it would be strange if they were. Within the forty-five years of his public life he must have preached many hundreds of discourses. Of these, in times of war and persecution, many must have been lost, many scattered to distant countries, and many mutilated. History says that enemies of the Buddha Dharma burnt piles of our books as high as a coco-nut tree.
168. Q. Do Buddhists consider the Buddha as one who by his own virtue can save us from the consequence of our individual sins?
A. Not at all. Man must emancipate himself. Until he does that he will continue being born over and over and over again—the victim of ignorance, the slave of unquenched passions.
169. Q. What, then, was the Buddha to us, and all other beings?
A. An all-seeing, all-wise Counsellor; one who discovered the safe path and pointed it out; one who showed the cause of, and the only cure for, human suffering. In pointing to the road, in showing us how to escape dangers, he became our Guide. He is to us like one leading a blind man across a narrow bridge over a swift and deep stream and so saving his life.