The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c16.5

c16.5

Still there is the question whether the economical conditions, as they are described by Manu and in the epics, represent the view of culture unfolded by the Jâtakas, whether they can at once be assigned to the period of the older Buddhism. The systematised commercial law, as we find it in Manu, the rules relating to loans at interest, the institute of experts in sea-borne trade, the duties upon river-borne and sea-borne merchandise, all this presupposes a stage of economical development which appears to me to be centuries later than the stage of culture depicted in the Jâtakas.¹