At the end of the Samannaphalasutta asks the king Ajatasattu the Buddha to admit himself to the samgha as an upasaka and leaves the place. After his retirement the Buddha shows to the bhikkhus his judgement about the king. But the Buddha's judgement itself is expressed in different manners in other versions of the sutta and especially無根信(rootless faith) is referred to of Ajatasattu. It has been already ascertained that無根信was translated from amulika sraddha which is found in the Sarvastivadavinaya-samghabhedavastu. The meaning of the 'rootless faith' is, however, left undetermined, as the late Prof. A. Hirakawa pointed out. 1. amulika saddha in the Cankisutta amulika saddha is not used in the Samannaphalasutta and not common in the Pali texts. The only usage of the term can be found in the Cahkisutta, MN. no. 95 which lacks any corresponding Chinese translation. [The Cangisutra in the Schoyen collection is expected to be edited.] So I examined here the meaning of amulika saddha in the Cankisutta. According to this Sutta, the brahmins declare that only the Vedic hymn (mantapada) is true and the others are false. Kapatika asks the Buddha what he thinks about this. Then the Buddha asks him if there has been any brahmin who says :'I know this. I see this. Only this is true and the others are false.' Kapatika answers in the negative, then the Buddha concludes that the faith of the brahmins is rootless. Here the root (mula) means a person who knows and sees the truth. A similar dialogue can be found in the Tevijjasutta, MN. no. 13. Here the term amulika saddha is not used, but the Buddha relates, in the same ways, that the value of a statement depends upon the person who knows and sees the truth. 2. 'rooted in the Bhagavat' (bhagavammulaka) The stock phrase 'our doctrines are rooted in the Bhagavat' is familiar in the next formula: bhagavammulaka no dhamma bhagavamnettika bhagavampatisarana, Vimamsakasutta, MN. no. 47. As the doctrines are rooted, or have their root, in the Bhagavat, the Bhagavat is the root of the doctrines. If the faith is pinned on the Tathagata, it strikes root (tathagate saddha nivittha mulajata). But here is a problem. Which person is the Buddha? Vasettha, for instance, says: I came to put questions to you, well known as Enlightened (Sn 597cd). In the case of Cunda also he meets the Buddha and says to him: I put questions to the Buddha (Sn 83). And then begins the dialogue between Cunda and the Buddha. Naturally there is only one Buddha, nevertheless Cund and the Buddha himself speak of Buddhas. Cunda asks the Buddha: whom do the Buddhas call the victor of the way? The Buddha answers: the Buddhas call.....buddha appears both in singular and plural form. Dhammapada 183 is sanskritized in Udanavarga XXVIII, 1: sabbapapassa akaranam kusalassa upasampada/sacittapariyodapanam etam buddhana sasanam//Dhp 183 sarvapapasyakaranam kusalasyopasampada/svacittaparyavadanam etad buddhasya sasanam//Udv XXVIII, 1 Here the plural form buddhana in Pali is sanskritized in singlar form buddhasya. This change is caused by metre and buddhana/buddhasya can be found also in Dhp 185f/Udv XXXI, 50f and Dhp 194a/Udv XXX, 22a. As the case of buddhassa/buddhanam: evam etam abhinnaya bhikkhu buddhassa savako/Dhp 75cd etaj jnatva yathabhutam buddhanam sravakah sada//Udv XIII, 6cd These cases mean that the buddha in singular and plural is easily exchangeable and there are many examples where buddho and buddha appear. The Buddha is called dhammabhuta and the man who has faith in the doctrine of the Buddha is called 'born of the doctrine' (dhammajata). He is the true son of the Bhagavat and born from the mouth of the Bhagavat. The metaphorical expression 'born from the mouth of the Bhagavat' is a Buddhist modification of the Purusasukta, RV. X, 90. Vedic ideas underlie the Selasutta of the Suttanipata, when Sela tries to hear from the Buddha of the successor of the Buddha and the Buddha tells him that Sariputta is the successor. The Buddha was
