The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c4.6

c4.6

On the original bed much clay was deposited in the course of centuries, till the Jâtakas came to acquire the form which they at present have. The introductory narratives are, although they relate to the time of Buddha and go back to the older portions of the Pali canon, manifestly composed after the beginning of the Christian era; the conditions described in the paccuppannavatthu, the life of the cloister which is portrayed with the minutest detail and regulated by precise rules, the relation between the laymen and the confederation and many other matters show a departure from the culture-period of the atītavatthu and point to a time when Buddhism had already become a power and ruled over everything. If the view of culture to be sketched by me appears somewhat uniform, it is because the later components of the Jâtaka collection are left out of account; where they have been considered, I have brought out always very prominently their character as *paccuppannavatthu*. Now, even in the oldest form, there was some portion which was specifically Buddhistic and there was a good deal of subsidiary matter that was introduced later to continue the thread of the narrative. In general, we can suppose that our legends have changed very little from their original form, as the oral transmission of such stories is generally true to the letter of the original and has preserved the form in which they obtained currency among the disciples of Buddha and spread from mouth to mouth.