Society at the time of the Buddha

MUCH has been part scriptures. Ever since this great body of ancient Indian literature was brought to light by pioneers such as Turnour, it has aroused great interest among scholars, not only for the profound religious message which it contains, but also for the light it throws upon a vigorous and expanding civilization. The Pali canon reflects Northern India in the fifth century B.C. more vivi than does almost any other body of sources for any later period of her pre-Muslim history. Great scholars, working mainly before the First World War, especially Rhys Davids and Fick, have analysed the immense mass of data which these sources provide. We cannot but admire the scholarship and patient labour which they put into their work. But it must be admitted that their handling of this material by the standards of modern historical criticism shows many shortcomings. One of the most outstanding of these is that both these great scholars and many others who succeeded them accepted the whole of the canon and also the commentarial literature ascribed to Buddha ghosa together with the prose Jataka as all of equal validity, and all faithfully reflecting the culture of the Buddha's day.