manuscripts very rare in Europe, and written in languages for the most part but little known. Much of what follows is necessarily therefore very incomplete and provisional.
In some portions of the Brāhmanical literature, later than the Vedas, and probably older than Buddhism, there are found myths and legends of a character somewhat similar to a few of the Buddhist ones. But, so far as I know, no one of these has been traced either in Europe or in the Buddhist Collection.
On the other hand, there is every reason to hope that in the older portions of the Buddhist Scriptures a considerable number of the tales also included in the Jātaka Book will be found in identical or similar forms; for even in the few fragments of the Piṭakas as yet studied, several Birth Stories have already been discovered.[1] These occur in isolated passages, and, except the story of King Mahā Sudassana, have not as yet become Jātakas, — that is, no character in the story is
- ↑ Thus, for instance, the Maṇi Kaṇṭha Jātaka (Fausböll, No. 253) is taken from a story which is in both the Pāli and the Chinese versions of the Vinaya Piṭaka (Oldenberg, p. xlvi); the Tittira Jātaka (Fausböll, No. 37, translated below) occurs almost word for word in the Culla Vagga (vi. 6, 3-5); the Khandhavatta Jātaka (Fausböll, No. 203) is a slightly enlarged version of Culla Vagga, v. 6; the Sukhavihāri Jātaka (Fausböll, No. 10, translated below) is founded on a story in the Culla Vagga (vii. 1, 4-6); the Mahā-sudassana Jātaka (Fausböll, No. 95) is derived from the Sutta of the same name in the Dīgha Nikāya (translated by me in 'Sacred Books of the East,' vol. ix.); the Makhā Deva Jātaka (Fausböll, No. 9, translated below) from the Sutta of the same name in the Majjhima Nikāya (No. 83); and the Sakuṇagghi Jātaka (Fausböll, No. 168), from a parable in the Satipaṭṭhāna Vagga of the Saŋyutta Nikāya.
