The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c4.1

c4.1

The title requires some explanation and justification. The sources upon which the inquiry that follows is based are the so-called Jâtakas or legends of previous births contained in the Pâli Canon of Southern Buddhism, that is, they are the stories which relate to the five hundred and fifty existences which Buddha in his various forms, ranging from that of an animal to that of a god, must have gone through before his final existence. The true and most ancient germ of the Jâtaka collection is contained in the verses (gâthâs) which exhibit *in nuce* the essential events of the legends and whose number determines the arrangement of the Jâtakas. These verses constitute, with the prose-commentary which gives the legend a more explicit form, the so-called *atîtavatthu*, the "story of the past" which has for its subject-matter the experiences of Buddha in one of his former existences. Each of these stories is preceded as an introduction by a *paccuppannavatthu* or "history of the present times," which tells us of the event in Buddha's life which impelled him to narrate the history of the past for illustrating the events of the present day. Then follows the *samodhāna*, or “connexion” by which Buddha, who remembers not only his own previous existence but that of people around him, identifies the persons of the *atītavatthu* with those of the *paccuppannavatthu*.