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other tales, where the verses do not occur in the story itself, but are put, like a chorus, into the mouth of a fairy (a devata) who has really nothing else to do with the story. It follows, I think, that these stories existed, without the verses, before they were adopted into the Buddhist scheine of Jātakas by having verses added to them; and that they are, therefore, probably, not only pre-Buddhistic, but very old.
On the other hand, as we have seen in the last chapter, the very custom, on which the Jātaka sys. tem is based, of handing down tales or legends in prose, with only the conversation in verse, is itself pre-Buddhistic. And the Jātaka Book is only another example, on a very extensive scale, of that pre-Epic form of literature of which there are so many other, shorter, specimens preserved for us in the earlier canonical texts.
To sum up:
1. The canonical Book of the Jātakas contains only the verses. It was composed in North India, in the so-called ' Middle Country,' before the time of Asoka. It is still unpublished.
2. It is absolutely certain that, with these verses, there must have been handed down, from the first, an oral commentary giving the stories in prose; for the verses without the stories are unintelligible.
3. Bas-reliefs of the third century B.C. have been found illustrating a number of these prose stories. One of these bas-reliefs gives also half of a verse.
4. There are Jätaka stories in those canonical books that are older than the Jātaka Book. .
5. These oldest extant Jātakas are similes, parables,
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
