Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c2.32

c2.32

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."