A History of Indian Literature v2.c19.s3.t2.90

v2.c19.s3.t2.90

The Suttanipāta contains not only didactic dialogues, but also a few narrative dialogues. Of these there are three, the Nālaka-Sutta (III, 11), the Pabbajjā-Sutta (III, 1), and the Padhāna-Sutta (III, 2), which are of special importance; for, they are precious remnants of that ancient sacred ballad-poetry from which the later epic version of the life of Buddha grew, in the same way as the heroic epic grew out of the secular ballads or Ākhyānas.² The chief peculiarity of these ballads is the conversational form. The dialogue was usually sufficient to bring the course of a narrative before the mind of the hearer. Where this was not the case, however, brief prose formulæ, a short introduction and a few short prose sentences were often inserted. The insertion of narrative-stanzas between the conversational stanzas was a further step in the development. We find this final step in the development of the ancient Indian Ākhyāna, which really formed the preliminary step to the epic, in the three Suttanipāta ballads above-mentioned, dealing with scenes from the history of Buddha's youth. We find here the chief features of the later Buddha-legend already prepared. The Nālaka-Sutta deals with the events immediately after the birth of the Buddha-child: