A History of Indian Literature v2.c19.s3.t1.54

v2.c19.s3.t1.54

Besides such magnificent compositions, we find sermons as dry as dust in which a series of technical expressions or a fundamental doctrine is explained in catechism style, *e. g.*, Nos. 43 and 44.¹ Some of these Suttas (*e. g.*, Nos. 127, 137, 140, 148, 151) have completely adopted the style of the enumerations of the Aṅguttaranikāya and of the definitions and classifications of the Abhidhammapiṭaka. The above-mentioned Ākhyānas, in which the narrative proceeds vividly in a mixture of prose and verse, are very different from Suttas like No. 116, where a bare list of Paccekabuddhas (hermit-Buddhas who have attained enlightenment without proclaiming it to the world) is given first in prose and immediately afterwards in verse. This kind of mixture of prose and verse, which we came across occasionally in the Dīghanikāya also, belongs to a much later type, which we shall meet again in the Sanskrit Buddhist literature.