A History of Indian Literature v2.c19.s3.t2.190

v2.c19.s3.t2.190

If, therefore, a few prominent scholars² have assumed that the Jātakas offer us a picture of the narrative literature and the conditions of civilisation at the time of Buddha or a still earlier time, it is true only in a very limited sense. Some of the poems and a few of the prose narratives may perhaps reach back to such great antiquity. Some of the sayings and legends may indeed belong to the pre-Buddhist ascetic poetry. For the great mass of the verses, however, no greater antiquity than the 3rd century B.C. can conscientiously be urged, certainly not proved, and much of the prose assuredly belongs to the Christian era. We have already mentioned that not even all the Gāthās belonged to the canonical Jātaka. Now the last-named is not the work of a single, individual author, but is the product of the labours of compilers.¹ The compilers arranged the verses in such a manner as they thought proper, in order to form a narrative. Such procedure must have entailed many an error.²