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CHAPTER XI
THE JẤTAKA BOOK
THE Jātaka book, which we have now had before
us for some years, in full, in the admirable edition of the Pali text by Professor Fausböll, is now also approaching its completion in the English translation published at Cambridge under the supervision of Professor Cowell. It is so full of information on the daily habits and customs and beliefs of the people of India, and on every variety of the numerous questions that arise as to their economic and social conditions, that it is of the utmost importance to be able to deterinine the period to which the evidence found in this book is applicable. The problem is somewhat complicated. But if only the right distinctions be drawn, the solution of it seems to me substantially sure, and really perfectly simple,
That we should have to draw distinctions between different parts of the same book is nothing sur
The following is an enlarged restatement of view's first put forward in the introduction (written in August, 1975) to my Buddhist Birth Stories.
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Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
