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LITERATURE .
179 porated into the several collections in which they are now found. When we find also that numerous isolated verses in these thirty-eight poems occur elsewhere in very ancient documents, the most probable explanation is that these were current as proverbs or as favourite sayings (either in the community, or perhaps among the people at large) before they were independently incorporated in the different poems in which they are now found.
We find, then, that single verses, single poems, and single Cantos, had all been in existence before the work assumed its present shape. This is very suggestive as to the manner of growth not only of this book, but of all the Indian literature of this period. It grew up in the schools; and was the result rather of communistic than of individual effort. No one dreamed of claiming the authorship of a volume. In the whole of the Buddhist canonical works one only, and that the very latest, has a personal name attached to it, the name of a leading member of the Order said to have lived in the time of Asoka. During the previous three centuries authorship is attributed not to treatises, or even poems, but only to verses; and to verses in two only out of the many collections of verses that have been preserved. Out of twentynine books in the Canon no less than twenty-six have no author at all, apart from the community.
This is decisive as to popular feeling on the point. And even in the priestly schools the then prevalent custom was not greatly different. Their works also were not produced by individuals, but grew up in the various schools of the priestly community. And
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
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