________________
196
BUDDHIST INDIA
The reverse case is about as frequent; that is to say, stories are told in the older documents, and the hero is expressly identified with the Buddha in a previous birth, and nevertheless these stories are not included in our Jātaka collection. Such stories even before the Jātaka book grew up were called Jātakas. There is a very ancient division found already in the Nikāyas, of Buddhist literature into nine classes. One of these is “ Jātakam," that is to say,. Jātakas. And this must refer to such episodes in previously existing books. It cannot refer to the Jātaka book now included in the Canon, for that was not yet in existence. And it is important to notice that in no one of these instances of the earliest compositions that were called Jātakas is the Buddha identified in his previous birth with an animal. He is identified only with famous sages and teachers of olden time. This was the first idea to be attached to the word Jātaka. What we find in the canonical book is a later development of it.
Such are the oldest forms, in the Buddhist literature, of the Jātakas. And we learn from them two facts, both of importance. In the first place these oldest forins have, for the most part, no framework and 110 verse. They are fables, parables, legends, entirely (with two exceptions) in prose.
Secondly, our existing Jätaka book is only a partial
So for instance Ghatikāra (M1. 2. 53); Mahā-govinda (D. 2. 220); Pacetana's wheelwright (1. 1. 111); and Mahā-vijaya's priest (D. 1. 143). The story of Mahā Govinda occurs, as a Jātaka, in the Cariyā Pițaka. | ? Majjhina, I. 123 ; Anguttara, II, 7, 103, Ios,—P. P., 43. I78 ; Vinaya, 3.S. The phrase Vacangam Buddha-vacanam is later,
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
