Page:Buddhist Birth Stories, or, Jātaka Tales.djvu/66

liv examples of the lives in which he acquired the other eight of the Perfections. It looks very much as if the original plan of the unknown author had been to give ten Birth Stories for each of the Ten Perfections. And, curiously enough, the Northern Buddhists have a tradition that the celebrated teacher Aṣvagosha began to write a work giving ten Births for each of the Ten Perfections, but died when he had versified only thirty-four. Now there is a Sanskrit work called, as yet unpublished, but of which there are several MSS. in Paris and in London, consisting of thirty-five Birth Stories in mixed prose and verse, in illustration of the Ten Perfections. It would be premature to attempt to draw any conclusions from these coincidences, but the curious reader will find in a Table below a comparative view of the titles of the Jātakas comprised in the Cariyā Piṭaka and in the Jātaka Mālā.

There is yet another work in the Pāli Piṭakas which constantly refers to the Jātaka theory. The, which is a history of all the Buddhas, gives an account also of the life of the Bodisat in the character he