The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c4.5

c4.5

It may seem to be a very bold thing to take an entirely determinate period, namely, the age of Buddha, for the age of the legends and the state of civilization depicted in them. Taken as a whole, the collection of Jâtakas in their present form surely does not represent any single culture period. Many of the Jâtakas are undoubtedly very old and belong, so far as their origin is concerned, to the pre-Buddhistic period. That they were known in the third century B. C. and that too in the form of legends of previous births of Buddha designed for the education of laymen—for this we have irrefutable evidence in the sculptures in the third century B. C. which are found in the tombstones of Sanchi, Amaravati and Bharhut; these reliefs represent scenes from the Jâtakas and the superscriptions which are added to the individual representations agree with the titles contained in our texts. If these sculptures give us, as the lower limit of the age of the Jâtakas, the third century B.C., there are reasons—as has been shown clearly by Bühler (Indian Studies, No. 3, p. 17 sq. in the “Sitzungsberichten der Wiener Akademie, Philoshist. Classe” Vol. 132)—for placing it in a still earlier age.