'âkâryaGopadattâdyair avadânakramogghitâh
ukkityokkitya vihitâ gadyapadyavisriṅkhalâh,
ekamârgânusârinyah param gâmbhîryakarkasâh
vistîrnavarnanâh santi Ginagâtakamâlikâh.'
'There exist many "Garlands of Birth-stories of the Gina" by Gopadatta and other teachers, who, discarding the usual order of the Avadânas, gathered tales carptim, and told them at length in elaborate prose (gadya) interspersed with verse, holding themselves free as to the proportions of the two styles, which they made interchange. They all treat of the praise of the Right Path, but, owing to their profoundness, are hard to understand.'
This definition of that class exactly suits the work, the translation of which is here published. This composition consists, indeed, of verse intermingled with flowery prose built up according to the rules and methods of Sanskrit rhetoric; it claims to be a florilegium, a selection of Gâtakas, with the avowed object of rousing or invigorating the true faith in the minds of the reader; and the stories are told at length. It has perhaps been the most perfect writing of its kind. It is distinguished no less by the superiority of its style than by the loftiness of its thoughts. Its verses and artful prose are written in the purest Sanskrit[15], and charm the reader by the elegance of their form and the skill displayed in the handling of a great variety of metres, some of which are rarely to be met with elsewhere[16], and are sometimes adorned with the additional qualities of difficult and refined rhymes, and the like. Apparently Sûra, to whom the Gâtakamâlâ is ascribed, was a poet richly gifted by Nature, whose talent must have been developed by thorough and extensive literary studies. Above all, I admire his moderation. Unlike so many other Indian masters in the art of literary composition, he does not allow himself the use of embellishing apparel and the whole luxuriant mise en scène of Sanskrit alamkâra beyond what is necessary for his subject. His flowery descriptions, his long and elaborate sermons, his elegant manner of narration, are always in harmony with the scheme of the whole or the nature of the contents. Similarly, in the choice of his metres he was guided by stylistic motives in accordance with the tone and sentiment required at a given point of the narrative. It is a pity that most of these excellencies are lost in the translation.
Thus much for the philologist and the lover of Oriental literature. To the student of Buddhism it is the peculiar character of the Gâtakamâlâ which constitutes its great importance. Although it is styled 'a garland of stories,' it is really a collection of homilies. Each Gâtaka is introduced by a simple prose sentence of ethical and religious purport, which is to be illustrated by the story. The whole treatment of the tale bears the character of a religious discourse. Prof. Cowell, in his preface to the translation of the Pâli Gâtaka, observes that the Gâtaka-legends are 'continually introduced into the religious discourses ... whether to magnify the glory of the Buddha or to illustrate Buddhist doctrines and precepts by appropriate examples[17].' Our Gâtakamâlâ has a right to be called a choice collection of such sermons, distinguished by their lofty conception and their artistic elaboration. It is a document of the first rank for the study of ancient Buddhist homiletics, and is for this reason entitled to a place among the Sacred Books of the East.
Sûra took his thirty-four holy legends from the old and traditional store of Gâtaka-tales. Almost all of them have been identified with corresponding ones in other collections, both of Northern and Southern Buddhism. So far as I could control those parallels or add to them, I have taken care to notice them at the beginning or at the end of each story. The author himself in his introductory stanzas declares his strict conformity with scripture and tradition; and, however much he has done for the adornment and embellishment of the outer form of his tales, we may trust him, when he implies that he has nowhere changed their outlines or their essential features, but has narrated them as they were handed down to him by writing or by oral tradition. Wherever his account differs from that preserved in other sources, we may infer that he followed some different version. Sometimes he passes over details of minor importance. For instance, in the second story he avoids the hideous particulars of the eye-operation, dwelt upon in the Pâli Gâtaka. The same good taste will be appreciated in Story XXVIII, when the cruel act of the wicked king against the monk Kshântivâdin has to be told, and in Story VIII. Stories XVII, XXII, XXXI are much simpler than their parallels in the holy Pâli book, which are unwieldy, encumbered as they are by exuberance of details. I cannot help thinking that Sûra omitted such particulars purposely. For the rest, he does not pretend to tell stories new or unknown to his readers. He acknowledges their popularity; he puts the story of the tigress at the beginning, in order to honour his teacher, who had celebrated that Gâtaka. He often neglects to give proper names to the actors in his tales. For instance, of Agastya, Ayogriha, Kuddabodhi, the heroes of the Gâtakas thus named, it is nowhere said that they were so called. Gûgaka, the Brâhman who begged the children from Visvantara, consequently a well-known figure in the legend, is only named 'a Brâhman.' In the same story (IX) Madrî, the wife of the hero, is introduced as a well-known person, although her name had not been mentioned before.
That he closely adheres to the traditional stock of legends is also shown by a good number of his verses. Generally speaking, the metrical part of the Gâtakamâlâ admits of a fourfold division. There are laudatory verses, praising and pointing out the virtues of the hero; these are commonly found in the first part or preamble of the tale. There are descriptive verses, containing pictures of fine scenery or of phenomena. Further, there are religious discourses, sometimes of considerable length, put in the mouth of the Bodhisattva; they have their place mostly at the end[18]. The rest consists in verses treating of facts in the story, and it is chiefly there that we find again the gâthâs of the corresponding Pâli Gâtakas. It is incontestable that in a great many cases Sûra worked on the same or a very similar stock of gâthâs as are contained in the Sacred Canon of the Southern Buddhists. For the sake of reference I have registered those parallel verses in a Synoptical Table, which is placed at the end of this book (pp. 337-340). Sometimes the affinity is so striking that one text will assist the interpretation and critical restitution of the other. Sûra's stanza, V, 11, for example, has not been invented by the author himself; it is a refined paraphrase in Sanskrit of some Prâkrit gâthâ of exactly the same purport as that which in Fausböll's Gâtaka III, p. 131, bears the number 158. By comparing pâda c in both, it is plain that in the Pâli text no ought to be read instead of vo[19]. It must have been sacred texts in some popular dialect, not in Sanskrit, that underly the elaborate and high-flown verses of Sûra. This is proved, among other things, by the mistake in XIX, 17, pointed out by Prof. Kern in the Various Readings he has appended to his edition.
As I have already remarked, each story is introduced by a leading sentence, expressing some religious maxim, which, according to Indian usage, is repeated again at the end as a conclusion to the story, being preceded by evam or tathâ, 'in this manner.' But, as a rule[20], the epilogues are not limited to that simple repetition. They often contain more, the practical usefulness of the story thus told being enhanced by the addition of other moral lessons, which may be illustrated by it, or by pointing out different subjects of religious discourses, in connection with which our tale may be of use. Most of these epilogues, in my opinion, are posterior to Sûra. Apart from the argument offered by some remarkable discrepancies in style and language and the monkish spirit pervading them, I think it highly improbable that, after the author had put at the head and at the end of each Gâtaka the moral maxim he desires to inculcate upon the minds of his readers by means of the account of a certain marvellous deed of the Bodhisattva, he should himself add different indications for other employments to serve homiletical purposes. It is more likely that these accessories are of later origin, and were added when the discourses of Sûra had gained so great a reputation as to be admitted to the Canon of Sacred Writings, and had come to be employed by the monks as a store of holy and edifying sermons for the purposes of religious instruction.