Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c10.34

c10.34

There are greater chronological uncertainties in the case of the Jain sources, which have not been edited and studied as well as the Buddhist texts. It is held that the canonical works were first compiled somewhere towards the end of the fourth or the beginning of the third century B.C.¹ But, dealing as they do with the life of Mahāvīra, they may be utilised for the pre-Mauryan period, from which they were not far removed in point of time.