Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c9.s2.59

c9.s2.59

IV. To the fourth class belong the Buddhist *Suttas*, *Vinaya* texts and the *Jātakas*. Several works of the Buddhist canon are noticed in votive inscriptions at Bharhut and Sāñchī assigned to the second and first centuries B. C. Many of the reliefs found on the railings and gateways of *Stūpas* of the age depict stories taken from the *Jātakas*. The texts of the Pali canon are said to have been committed to writing in the first century B.C. They furnish a good deal of useful information regarding the period which immediately preceded the accession of Bimbisāra. They have also the merit of preserving Buddhist versions of ancient stories, and vouchsafe light when the light from Brāhmaṇical sources begins to fail.