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Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c2: The Homogeneity of the Jātakas and Their Age

Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jātaka Stories c2

Language
English

The Homogeneity of the Jātakas and Their Age

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The Jātakas, on which the whole of the present work is based, are, as is well-known, a collection of stories included in the Khuddaka-Nikāya of the Suttapiṭaka of the Pāli Canon. These stories, as edited by Fousböll, number 547. But as in some of these numbers, several stories are included, while others only contain references to later Jātakas, and also as sometimes the same stories recur in different versions, the figure 547 does not agree exactly with the actual number of the stories.¹ The Culla-Niddesa gives the number as 500 (pañca-jātaka-satāni).² The collection is obviously incomplete. It does not, and could not, include all the stories current at the time of its final redaction or compilation, probably in the 5th century A.D.;³ neither does it include all the episodes still to be seen on the remnants of the Bharhut and Sanchi, Andhra, and other railings,⁴ nor could all Jātaka-like stories to be found in the various Buddhist and non-Buddhist works.⁵

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¹ Culla-Niddesa, II, p. 80, an old commentary (probably of 1st or 2nd century B.C.) on the Jātaka-aṭṭhakathā of the Sutta-Nipāta, speaks of 500 Jātakas: Fa-hien too, (Record of the Buddhistic Kingdoms, transl. by J. Legge, Oxford, 1886, p. 106) speaks of pictures illustrating Jātaka stories which he had seen in Ceylon. See Barua, I.H.Q., I, p. 247; II, pp. 723 ff. Winternitz, History of Indian Literature, II, p. 124 n. 1. See now, B.C. Law, J.R.A.S., April, 1938, pp. 211-259.

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² Culla-Niddesa, II, p. 80; noticed by Barua, op. cit., p. 247; also Indian Culture, I, pp. 247 ff.

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³ The authorship of Buddhagoṣa (Gandhavaṃsa, J.P.T.S. 1886, p. 59), has been questioned by Rhys Davids, Buddhist Birth Stories, pp. LXIII ff; Burlingame, Buddhist Legends (H.O.S.), I, pp. 49, 55 ff. But see Law, J.R.A.S., April, 1939, p. 243.

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⁴ Foucher, J.B.O.R.S., VI, pp. 470, 472-3.

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⁵ Rhys Davids, Dialogues, I, p. 164; also Buddhist Birth Stories, Intro., p. lxxxl; cf. Winternitz, History of Indian Literature II, p. 115 n., 4; Gokuldas De, Cal. Rev. Aug. 1929, p. 243; B.C. Law, J.R.A.S., April, 1939, pp. 241-55, puts a strong case for the traditional view.

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Every single Jātaka, in the Pāli collection, consists of the following parts: (a) An introductory story, i.e., 'story of the present' (paccuppannavatthu), which relates on what occasion the Buddha himself told the monks the Jātaka in question; (b) Atītavatthu, i.e., 'story of the past' in which a tale of the former births of the Buddha, in other words, a Bodhisatta story, or a story relating to later Buddhist dogmatics, is told; (c) the Gāthās which, as a rule, constitute the Jātaka of the Akkhāna type and which, like the story of the past, are supplemented by the abhisaṃbuddhagāthās as these later are generally termed;⁶ (d) short commentary (veyyākaraṇa) in which the Gāthās are explained word for word; and (e) the story of the identification (samodhāna) in which, finally, the personages of the story of the past are identified, by the Buddha himself, with those of the 'story of the present', and the psychological effect of the discourse on the mind of the listeners is described. These are the different parts which form a single Jātaka in this huge narrative work, the Jātakaṭṭhavaṇṇanā. again, we have chosen to take our stand, for drawing up a picture India, only on the ‘story of the past’ (prose) and the Gāthās or verses both easily join one another and together form a beautiful whole (Atīta- The stories of the present (Paccuppannavatthu) are left aside, for th sometimes only duplicates of the ‘stories of the past,’ sometimes foolis entirely worthless inventions, and at best narratives which have been bor from other parts of the Canon, e. g., Vinayapiṭaka, Suttanipāta, A or from other commentaries, and are not therefore as valuable as the Jātakas, or the ‘stories of the past.’ Similarly the commentary (veyyāka and the ‘connexion’ (samodhāna), being solely the work of the late compiler, are left out.¹

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⁶ 'Verses spoken by the Buddha after his enlightenment'. Cf. Senart, J.A., 1901

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¹ July, 1930, p. 68. It was hitherto thought that this canonical Jātaka, prose, had been preserved in manuscripts. Frederick Weller, however, expyre and two other MSS. from Mandalay of Jātaka verses, and came to e manuscripts only contain extracts from the Jātaka Commentary, but taka which belongs to the canon. Dr. Winternitz while admitting that the original verse Jātaka is still extant in MSS. has been shaken He takes great pains to prove the existence of such an independent and Jātaka Commentary, in I.H.Q., IV, pp. 1 ff. History of Indian note.

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Now, the actual Jātaka is a story in which the Bodhisatta plays a in one of his former births, whether as the hero of the or as a secondary character or as a spectator only. S it was possible to change into a Jātaka any story told among the people or which was known fro by identifying the best character, according to the Buddhists wh with the Bodhisatta, or the Buddha himself in some previous bi way all kinds of stories, fairy-tales, fables, anecdotes, trad (akkhāna : anussuti) were utilised,² And even the Buddha, the Saddharma-Puṇḍarīka, for instance,³ one of the earlier Bu texts, taught by means of Sūtras, Gāthās, legends and Jātakas.

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We do not however mean to enter into a detailed discu history of the Jātakas as we have them, their origin, gro when and how they were included in the Buddhist canon form, and how they were finally compiled in their present problems, very intricate indeed, are more or less exhaustively other scholars.⁴ In order to understand, as far as possible, the the basis on which we stand, we have to note certain important po the help derived from the painstaking researches of these eminent sch

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Mr. Gokuldas De, in one of his essays on the Significance of the Jāt has conclusively shown that, bereft of the Bodhisatta id a Jātaka originally consisted of a verse or verses embodyin in a concise form a past episode, generally with a mora understood with the help of a prose narration which for th most part remained implicit rather than explicit, changing according to circumstances.⁵ That originally the Jātakas were folk-tales in verses

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natural assumption but has been very ably established by Sinhalese tradition also asserts that during the process of transhe Old Sinhalese language and retranslation into Pāli of the that it was only the prose which was open to this process, were preserved unchanged in Pāli. And it is only these Gāthās, which were included in the Canon whenever it was compiled.² tradition says that the canonical texts were first transmitted under the Sinhalese king Vaṭṭagāmaṇī, in the first century were committed to writing, and this, according to Dr. Winterquite trustworthy.³ Originally both prose and verse of the ne down orally; but naturally the prose had a less stable form rse, being more exposed to changes and enlargements, so that ion was composed, and subsequently when it was written down, entury B.C. as noticed above, only the verses retained their oriwhereas the rendering of the prose was at first entrusted to the could recite the verses more faithfully than the prose, and it later period committed to writing by Commentators.⁴ As Mr. as, the Jātakas as a collection of selected verses go back to very Buddha if not earlier still.⁵ "...And their antiquity the possibility of a prose interpretation in the light of their ing them from the very beginning. Though there is ample Wort of the fact that, ancient Indian literature was in verse, called Akkhānas,⁶ the Buddha, who is said to have enjoined to use them in practical life, could not have entirely done application and, in the absence of developed Buddhist litee has recourse to such passages from these Akkhānas as the propagation of his Doctrine of Ahimsā and Kamma his own interpretations for safeguarding against the influx

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² about the Four councils (saṅgītis) wherein the canon is said to have See Winternitz, History of Ind. Lit. II, pp. 3 ff. But see R. C. ile in Buddhistic studies, pp. 26-72. On the whole the view of Dr. that it is possible that the canon was not compiled all at once, the monks, the most important of which was the Pāṭaliputta session rrect.

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³ Literature und Sprache,' in Bühler's Grundriss, 1916, pp. 14, 21; 10, n. 2. Oldenberg, J.P.T.S. (1910-2) p. 31. "Nevertheless we the whole, the Gāthās have a stronger claim to be regarded as canoortions of the Jātakas... Moreover, the language of the Gāthās he prose": Winternitz, op. cit., II, pp. 119, 123; the difference holl in Dines Anderson's Index to the Jātakas, Intro. pp. IV-VI. 1930), p. 83; See also J. Przyluski, I. H. Q., V, p. 1. theory: The Prose-and-Verse type of Narrative and the Jātakas. H.Q., IV, p. 13.

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1. See Winternitz, op. cit., II, p. 123; Gokuldas De, Cal. Rev. Feb. 1931, pp. 298 ff.
2. See Winternitz in Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, VII, p. 491.
3. II, 44 (S.B.E., XXI, p. 45). The division of the Buddhist Scriptures into nine aṅgas, viz., Suttam, geyyam, veyyākaraṇam, gāthā, udānam, itivuttakam, jātakam, abbhutadhammam vedallam, is very old: Dīpavaṃsa, Ch. IV; See Thomas, I.H.Q., IX, 32 ff.
4. The latest among them are Dr. Winternitz, op. cit., II, pp. 113-56, and Dr. Bimala Churn Law, A History of Pāli Literature; also Gokuldas De, Significance of the Jātakas, being a reprint of articles published in the Calcutta Review. Law, J.R.A.S., April, 1939, pp. 241-55.
5. Calcutta Review, Jan. 1930, pp. 78 ff.

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of vulgar ideas and misconceptions. These interpretations augmented and modified by various other hands supplied the prose of the *Jātakas* from the time of their origin onwards."¹

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¹ Calcutta Review, Feb. 1931, pp. 279-80.

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The above discussion, then, brief though it is, points to the pre-Buddhist origin of the *Jātakas*—*Jātakas* in the sense of versified stories. S. R. Otto Franke: "The bulk of *Jātaka-Gāthās* is the work of many, chiefly non-Buddhist authors, though one editor or compiler (not author) may, by recasting the whole, have altered and even added verses here and there. Authors of folklore have always remained anonymous: the story originates in the mind of one man: he composes the verses and puts them afloat among the folk: in course of time these verses become the common possession of the whole folk: the verses are thus preserved, with very rare modification: the prose which is only a commentary on these verses changes from mouth to mouth, until it settles in the form in which it is finally committed to writing. This is, in general, the life-story of a folk-tale. The same can be said with regard to the *Jātaka* stories.

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This is not to say that all the *Jātaka* stories, or even the *Gāthās* as embodied in our collection, were current at the time of the Buddha. It may however be conceded that the major portion was. It is also probable that even the verse-*Jātaka* of the canon, if it existed as an independent work contained a smaller number of *Gāthās*. The number seems to have gradually increased. And as regards prose³, too, it is the work of the later-day commentator, say of the 5th century A.D. But this is about the language with which we have no concern at present. We have to see what kind of material has been used in that prose. Dr. Winternitz⁴ has analysed the different kinds and forms of narrative composition as represented in the *Jātaka*-collection: (*a*) First, there are narratives in prose with fable verses, fairy-tale stanzas, or aphorisms inserted here and there. Prose and verses easily join with one another, and together form such a beautiful whole that we cannot but assume that in these cases the *Jātakaṭṭhavaṇṇanā* used good old traditions for the prose also; (*b*) secondly, there are Ballads in dialogue form, in a mixture of conversational verses and narrative stanzas. The prose which we find in the collection is as a rule, in these cases, the entirely superfluous and insipid fabrication of some commentator, and as a matter of fact is not infrequently in actual contradiction to the verses; (*c*) thirdly, there are longer narratives, beginning in prose and continued in verse, or in which prose narration alternates with narrative and conversational verses. Here prose is indispensable, but the prose of the collection is not a faithful copy of the original prose, but greatly enlarged on, and disfigured, by commentatorial additions; (*d*) fourthly, there are collections of sayings on any subject and, lastly (*e*) regular epics or epic fragments. In the latter two cases, the ose in the book is again a superfluous commentary, and mostly spiritless to the bargain.

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² W. Z. K. M., 20 (1906), p. 318.

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³ Cf. Charpentier: "In general the *Jātaka* prose rests an ancient tradition." Z. D. M.G., 66 (1912), pp. 41 ff. W. Z. K. M. 27, (1913) pp. 92 ff.

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⁴ History of Ind. Lit., II, pp. 124-5.

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But, as we said, it is the material, the contents of the stories which are of more importance than the language of the prose in which they are written. And we cannot deny that the major part of the stories in the collection preserves older material. Even Dr. Winternitz has to admit in the face of archaeological evidence of a compelling character, that in the prose, too, much that is old have been preserved.¹ This evidence comes from the precious monuments, the Stūpas of Barhut and Sāñchī, of the second or third century B.C.² The importance of the reliefs on the stone-walls around these stūpas, from the point of view of the history of the Jātakas, can hardly be overestimated. On these reliefs are depicted scenes from the Jātakas³ including scenes which occur only in the prose. Not only this. Sometimes even the titles of the Jātakas are inscribed, which are sometimes the same as those in the Jātaka book, but which in other cases differ. These reliefs then prove, as admitted by Dr. Winternitz, that a number of stories, which are also to be found in the Jātaka collection, were in the second, perhaps even in the third century B.C., technically called ‘Jātakas’ and were regarded as Bodhisatta stories⁴ and that accordingly they must have been known in India long before, and possibly belonged to the pre-Buddhist period.⁵

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¹ Op. cit., II, p. 120.

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² See specially Barua, Barhut-Stone as a story-teller.

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³ More than thirty scenes have been as yet identified: See Barua, and Sinha, Barhut Inscriptions, pp. 78-99; also Oldenberg, J. A. O. S., 18 (1897) pp. 183 ff. E. Hultzch, J. R. A. S., 1912 pp. 399 ff. 406; Rhys Davids, Buddhist India, p. 209; Foucher, The Beginnings of Buddhist Art, pp. 61 ff.

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⁴ But Gokuldas De, after a minute examination of the Barhut Jātaka label, comes to the conclusion that ‘the Jātakas of Barhut have to be taken in their ordinary sense meaning stories or fables told by the Master in illustration of his Doctrine and not in the special sense in which the Buddhists used them in later times implying birth stories of the Bodhisatta before he became the Buddha.’ Cal. Rev. Aug. 1929, pp. 257-64: ‘Barhut Jātakas in a New Light!’

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⁵ Hist. Ind. Lit., II, p. 121.

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We do not at all dogmatise on the point. The composition of the Jātaka collection has undoubtedly passed through several stages. It is utterly impossible to assign a definite date to the stories. Some of the poems and prose narratives must reach back to a great antiquity, even to the Vedic times. Some of the sayings, legends and ballads may belong to pre-Buddhist days. For the greater portion of the book, we may not urge any greater antiquity than the 3rd century B.C. And much of the prose decidedly belongs to the Christian era. In fact, we can generally hold, with Mr. Gokuldas De⁶ that the prose stories of the *Jātaka-Aṭṭhakathā* compiled about the latter part of the 5th century A.D. and looked upon as expansions or *viṭṭhāras* of *Jātaka* verses, many of which as old as the time of the Buddha, some even still older, are really a compendium of facts with dates ranging from the time of their origin up to the time of their final redaction, i.e., from pre-Buddhistic times down to the 5th century A.D., while we maintain that except in very rare cases, the claim to pre-Nikāya antiquity of the verses constituting the real *Jātakas* must be generally accepted.

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⁶ Calcutta Review, July, 1930, p. 83: He has shown the growth of the Jātaka literature through these stages: Pre-Buddhistic times—Akkhānas as popular folklores and ballads in Prakrit; Time of Buddha and the 1st Council—Jātakas as popular folklore and ballads illustrating the doctrine of Karma, incorporated in Āgama Piṭaka; Second Council—Suttanta Jātaka and Jātakas as moral stories incorporated with the Dhamma Vinaya; Third Council—Jātaka collection as a separate book of verses included in the Khuddaka Nikāya: special Jātakas as Cariyā Piṭaka; First Century A.D.—Bodhisatta vs. Devadatta stories from Jātakas and Jātakas as moral stories found in the Milinda; Fifth Century A.D.—Jātaka verses found in the Dhammapada Aṭṭhakathā; End of 5th Century A.D.—Jātakas of the Jātaka Book exclusively as birth stories of the Bodhisatta in Jātaka-Aṭṭhakathā.” Ibid, p. 84.

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THEIR HOMO- GENEITY. Thus, while recognising the uncertainty about the age of the *Jātaka* as our source of enquiry—we are unable to act up to the injunction laid down by Dr. Winternitz that 'not only every large section and every single narrative but often also every single *gāthā* will have to be tested independently as regards its age.' While going minutely through the stories we have felt that they are more or less faithful in depicting the picture of ancient Indian society: this picture again seems to be a homogeneous one. Throughout, it seems, the story-teller, whoever he might be, has fixed his eyes on the period before the Buddha. Old verses may have been mixed up with new, and the prose considerably enlarged, the details of the contents may not all be assigned to an older period, but as Mr. B. C. Sen has rightly observed, "the spirit of the old narrative was not sacrificed to novelty, and the literary embellishments, if introduced, did not apparently tend to produce an ill-assorted combination of things, belonging to different ages as found in many other works."

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We have set ourselves to the arduous task of presenting, as far as possible, a clear and comprehensive portrait of ancient Indian Society as reflected in the *Jātaka* stories. We have slowly but carefully gone through the whole of this huge collection, noted down each and every single fact contained in it and, in the end, tried to arrange the facts thus collected in a systematic narrative form. During this process, moreover, each and every fact has been minutely examined in the light of literary and other evidence of the surrounding period. We have already admitted that all the stories in this collection are handled by a compiler or compilers of about the 5th century A.D. And we have also shown that the major portion of the material thus handled had come down through several centuries. But we again lay the utmost emphasis on this fact, that the compiler (or compilers) had focussed his (or their) attention on the days before the birth of the Buddha. As we in these days, while narrating stories to our children, fix our eyes on the period of which we may be speaking, taking care that modern things and individuals do not find their way in our narrations, so must have the *Jātaka* compiler taken care to see that the stories he handled were not out of tune with the pre-Buddhistic conditions of society as he himself had come to know through tradition and literature. Thus it was that a fair degree of homogeneity was accomplished for this collection of stories. This homogeneity will readily be discerned from the presentation given in the following pages. It will be seen that the political, administrative, social, economic and even geographical conditions, as herein presented, quite harmoniously fit in the pre-Buddhistic period, as our knowledge of post-Vedic and post-Buddhist periods shows. What we mean to say is, that the stories on the whole give us a harmonious and a homogeneous picture of the pre-Buddhistic period. You may question the existence of a particular article, or thing, or place or individual, or raise doubts about a particular form of administrative, social, economic or religious institution. These doubts may or may not prove to be true. At least to us they would seem difficult, if not impossible, to be satisfied finally. It is not our task, even if it were possible, to test independently each single piece of prose-story and every single gāthā as regards its age. We only say this, that the stories are decidedly of different periods—from the Vedic period down to the 5th century A. D., that the gāthās do claim a greater antiquity than the prose—for which reason we have throughout this work given the number of the gāthās whenever any references are taken from them¹ but that the stories as a whole are homogeneous in their presentation of things of the pre-Buddhistic age.

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¹ Op. cit., II, p. 122. This is the task which some future Hopkins may well take up.

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² Studies in Jātakas, p. 169.

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¹ Mr. Gokuldas De's three articles on Ancient Indian Culture and civilization are based entirely on the Jātaka gāthās. The prose-portions have not been utilised. Still, it will be seen that his presentation, as far as it goes, does not materially differ from that of ours which is based on both the gāthās and the prose portions Cf. De, Jātaka Gleanings bearing on ancient Indian Culture and civilization: Sociology, Calcutta Review, Sept. 1931, pp. 361-74; Oct. 1931, pp. 106-122; Polity, Journal of the Department of Letters, Calcutta, XXV, 1934.

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This is all that we can say about the chronological aspect of the Jātakas, in the present state of our knowledge. And if therefore we are still inclined to hold with old scholars like Bühler,² Fick,³ Rhys Davids⁴ and Mrs. Rhys Davids⁵ that the conditions of civilisation as reflected in the Jātakas date back in pre-Buddhist days, we may be excused by over-critical scholars.

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² The Origin of the Indian Brāhma Alphabet, 2nd ed. pp. 16 ff.

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³ Social Organisation; preface, ix-x.

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⁴ Buddhist India, p. 202.

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⁵ J. R. A. S., 1901, pp. 859 ff.

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The importance of the Jātakas can hardly be under-estimated. They are simple stories, no doubt. The general tendency among scholars was, and perhaps still is, sceptical about the usefulness of such stories as a source of history. Sooner this scepticism goes away, better will be the understanding of history. All folk-tales, originating as they do among the vast folk, must reflect their life. Prof. Lacote, who devoted many years of his life in the study of Indian tales, opines that the Indian tales are for its history, religious, literary and social, of an importance of which no comparison with other literatures could possibly give an adequate idea.⁶ The Jātakas are of inestimable value, not only as regards literature and art, but also from the point of view of the history of civilization¹. Through all these centuries the Jātakas have enriched, directly or indirectly, the literature of many other peoples and have therefore been of immense importance in universal literature.² Similarly Indian and non-Indian art was aslo enriched by the Jātakas. "They belong to the oldest subjects that were pictorially represented in India, and to-day they are still favourite themes for sculpture and painting in all Buddhist countries."³ They are found in the 3rd and 2nd centuries B.C. on the stone walls of Barhut and Sāñchī, in the 2nd century A.D. on those of Amarāvatī, and still later in the caves of Ajaṇṭā. Fa-hien in the 5th century A.D. saw in Abhayagiri in Ceylon five hundred Jātakas represented by figures. Hiuen-Tsiang saw many Stūpas on which the Jātakas were represented. And the temples of Boro-Budur in Jāvā (9th century) of Pagan in Burmā (13th century) and of Sukhodaya in Siām (14th century) are decorated by beautiful reliefs containing Jātaka illustrations.⁴

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⁶ Essai sur Guṇādhya Et la Brhadkathā translated in Q. J. M. S. IV, pp. 64-85 "However fanciful it may be, it introduces us into a mixed world of princes, priests, merchants and artisans who feel, act and speak as men of their time, of their faith and caste... In a country so miserably poor in historical documents, tales are more than pleasing literary compositions. They are a mirror where the historian is allowed to contemplate, without being too deformed, a pretty exact image of the life of the people and the vicissitudes of the religious and social state."

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¹ Winternitz, op. cit., II, p. 156.

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² Ibid, p. 154, See also Rhys Davids, Buddhist Birth Stories, Intro, pp. l-xlviii

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³ Winternitz, op. cit., II, pp. 155.

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⁴ Winternitz, op. cit., loc. cit.

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Such is the great value of these simple stories. They have penetrated deeply into the minds of the people among whom they have been told. Even to-day their popularity among Buddhist people is not lessened. To these stories the Sinhalese folk still listen all the night long with unaffected delight.⁵ In Burmā too the Jātakas are, and have been for centuries, the delight of both learned and unlearned, of monks and laymen alike.⁶ So also in Tibet, in China, and in other places where Buddhism has penetrated and flourished.⁷

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⁵ See I. A., XXXII, (1903) p. 340.

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⁶ Epigraphia Birmanica, Vol. II, pt. I.

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⁷ Winternitz, op. cit., II, pp. 153-4.

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We conclude with these instructive remarks of Prof. Rhys Davids in "The popularity of the Jātakas as amusing stories may pass away. How can it stand against the rival claim of the fairy tales of Science and the entrancing, many sided, story of man's gradual rise and progress? But though these less fabulous and more attractive stories shall increasingly engage the attention of ourselves and of our children, we may still turn with appreciation to the ancient book of the Buddhist Jātaka tales as a priceless record of the childhood of our race."⁸

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⁸ Buddhist Birth Stories, Intro. lxxxvi-vii.

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SECTION I

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