A History of Indian Literature v2.c19.s3.t2.111

v2.c19.s3.t2.111

The Theragāthā and Therīgāthā are two collections, the first of which contains 107 poems with 1,279 stanzas (gāthā) and the second 73 poems with 522 stanzas, which are ascribed by tradition to certain Theras and Therīs mentioned by name. This tradition is guaranteed to us both by the manuscripts and by the commentary of Dhammapāla, probably composed in the 5th century A.D., which also contains narratives in which a kind of life-history of each of these Theras and Therīs is told. These narratives, however, are either merely adapted from the verses, or they are pure inventions, or have been borrowed from various narrative works. They are entirely unauthentic; neither is the tradition of the names of the Theras and Therīs as the authors of the verses on the whole, trustworthy.¹ However, the tradition is right in assuming for these poems, not one author, but many authors, and certainly in ascribing the authorship of the songs partly to monks and partly to nuns. Some of the songs which are ascribed to various authors may, of course, in reality be the work of only one poet, and, conversely, some stanzas ascribed to one and the same poet, might have been composed by various authors; there may also be a few songs among the "Songs of the Lady Elders," composed by monks, and possibly a few songs among the "Songs of the Elders," composed by nuns² but in no case can these poems be the product of one brain. If the same phrases frequently recur and the tone of the poems is, in many respects, uniform, it only proves that they all bear the stamp of the Buddhist mind, but not, as K. E. *Neumann*¹ considers, that "one man has left the impress of his mind on the whole."