SOAS Research Online

Abstract

The Thesis is an attempt to study the early Buddhist ballads as they occur in the Pali canon and their connection with the ancient Upanishads. In view of the vast extent of this material the SUTTANIPATA is taken as the main source of the enquiry from the Buddhist side; the Upanishads are those translated by Hume under the title:- "The Thirteen Principal Upanishads." The work is divided into four principal parts. The first part deals with the nature, growth and origin of the ballads, and the social conditions of that period; the second is devoted to the character of the parallel passages and the literature known to the ballads. In the third section the history of the fundamental ideas in the Upanishads and the ballads is given, and in the last a comparative table of the most important terms in both the literatures, supplemented by Asokan Inscriptions. The final chapter makes a brief survey of the whole work and gives a summary of the results.