Tribes in Ancient India c32.176

c32.176

Rhys Davids points out¹¹ that a conversational dialect, probably based on the local dialect of Śrāvastī, was in general use among Kośala officials, among merchants and among the more cultured classes, not only throughout the Kośala dominions but east and west from Delhi to Patna, and north and south from Śrāvastī to Avanti. Jacobi observes that the *Rāmāyaṇa* was composed in Kośala on the basis of ballads popularly recited by rhapsodists throughout the district. Kośala was also the very centre of Buddhist literary activity.¹