________________
BUDDHIST AND JAINA TEXTS
IV.
To the fourth class belong the Budhist Suttas, Vinaya texts and the Jatakas. Several works of the Buddhist canon are noticed in votive inscriptions at Bharhut and Sanchi assigned to the second and first centuries B. C. Many of the reliefs found on the railings and gateways of Stupas of the age depict stories taken from the Jutakas. The texts of the Pali canon are said to have been committed to writing in the first century B.C. They furnish a good deal of useful information regarding the period which immediately preceded the accession of Bimbisara. They have also the merit of preserving Buddhist versions of ancient stories, and vouchsafe light when the light from Brahmanical sources begins to fail.
11
V. To the fifth class belong the sacred texts of the Jainas. Some of the works may go back to a period earlier than the second century A.D. But the canon as a whole was probably reduced to writing in the fifth or sixth century A.D.1 It gives interesting information regarding many kings who lived during the pre-Bimbisarian Age. But its comparatively late date makes its evidence not always reliable.
1 Jacobi, Pariśishta parvan, p. vii; S. B. E., Vol. XXII, p. xxxvii; XLV, p. xl. Cf. Winternitz, A History of Indian Literature, Eng. trans., Vol. II. p. 432.
