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in many of its readings. The readings tend to agree with Sanskrit versions where available, and they seem to pose no very serious threat to the authenticity of the Pali tradition in this respect.
On the other hand, the very different arrangement of the verses in the Gandhari text may be evidence of an early stage in the process of compilation. An impression of homogeneity, and an objection to the reconstruction of an Urtext, at least in the present state of knowledge, have made Salomon disinclined to pursue this aspect of the matter. He writes (p.41) of the 'repetitive character of the poem as a whole, which develops over and over in different terms the same basic themes of the benefits of solitude and the necessity of choosing one's companions carefully'. One can, however, identify three different types of verse, which are unlikely to have originated in one burst of poctic inspiration: (1) About a third of the verses are constructed with gerunds, after the manner of the notably anomalous distich Pa[li] 11-12 (=Suttanipāta 45-46), Ga[ndhari] 25-26:
abhibhuyya ... careyya; (rājā va ratham) pahāya ... eko care (khaggavisāņakappo). This is unique among the verses also in that the syntax explicitly relates the rhinoceros image to the verb care alone, and it has a respectably ancient pedigree as Dhammapada 328-329 ...eko cure (mātang'araññe va nāgo). The Dhp version is more cogent, for there the image of a retiring king in one pāda ciarifies the image of the ousted leader of a herd of clephants in the 2. 'Whereas P[ali Khaggavisāna ) is the outcome of a long tradition of standardization and canonization, Gandhari Khargavişāna) is a single early testimony of what would be, at best, an early stage in the same processes (Salomon, p.48). Like Salomon (p.47), one would no longer entertain the thought that the deliberately repetitive Sanskrit version might reflect an early stage of development.
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