Page:Sacred Books of the Buddhists Vol 1.djvu/28

 information to Hodgson, or, perhaps, the original of the Tibetan collection of 101 tales, including also our Gâtakamâlâ, to which two Russian scholars, Serge d'Oldenburg and Ivanovski, have of late drawn the attention of the public. As to No. 32, its title, Gâtakâvadâna, allows the supposition that it is either a collection of Gâtakas and avadânas, or that it contains 'great religious exploits' (avadâna) performed by the Bodhisattva, who afterwards became Buddha, the Lord. Nothing is more common than the use of both terms in a nearly synonymous manner. Our Gâtakamâlâ bears also the appellation of Bodhisattvâvadânamâlâ. In translating Gâtaka by 'birth-story,' I comply with the general use and official interpretation of that term by the Buddhist Church. The original meaning must have been simply 'tale, story,' as Prof. Kern has demonstrated in his 'History of Buddhism in India .' Additional evidence of this statement may be drawn from the fact, that in several of the old and traditional headings of these stories the former part of the compound denotes not the Bodhisattva, but some other person of the tale, as Vyâghrîgâtaka, 'the Story of the Tigress,' or a thing, as Kumbhagâtaka, 'the Story of the Jar;' Bisagâtaka, 'the Story of the Lotus-stalks,' which are respectively Nos. I, XVII, and XIX of this collection; or an action, as Sîlavîmamsa(ka)gâtaka, the common heading of Nos. 86, 290, 305, and 330 in Fausböll's Pâli Gâtaka, Nakkagâtaka, ibid., No. 32, or a quality, as Sîlânisamsagâtaka, ibid., No. 190.

Some time after M. Féer's compte-rendu of the Paris MS. was published two new MSS. of the Gâtakamâlâ came to Europe. They belong to the valuable set of Sanskrit Buddhist works which Dr. Wright acquired for the Cambridge University Library, and are described by Prof. Cecil Bendall in his excellent Catalogue (1883). Prof. Kern was the first to appreciate the great literary merits of the Gâtakamâlâ, and soon planned an edition, availing himself of the two Cambridge MSS. (Add. 1328 and 1415) and the Paris one. This editio princeps was published at the end of 1891 as the first volume of the Harvard Oriental Series of Prof. Lanman. It has every right to bear the name of 'princeps,' not only because Ârya Sûra's work has never been edited before, but on account of