Transcriber's Notes: Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by =equal signs=. Small uppercase have been replaced with regular uppercase. Characters after a carat are superscripts. Blank pages have been eliminated. Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the original. THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE BUDDHISTS Oxford HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY SACRED BOOKS OF THE BUDDHISTS TRANSLATED BY VARIOUS ORIENTAL SCHOLARS AND EDITED BY F. MAX MÜLLER _PUBLISHED UNDER THE PATRONAGE OF_ HIS MAJESTY CHULÂLANKARANA, KING OF SIAM VOL. I London HENRY FROWDE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE AMEN CORNER, E.C. 1895 THE _G_ÂTAKAMÂLÂ OR GARLAND OF BIRTH-STORIES BY ÂRYA _S_ÛRA _TRANSLATED FROM THE SANSKRIT_ BY J. S. SPEYER London HENRY FROWDE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE AMEN CORNER, E.C. 1895 EDITOR'S PREFACE. After all the necessary preparations for the first and second series of the _Sacred Books of the East_, consisting in all of forty-nine volumes, with two volumes of _General Index_, had been completed, I still received several offers of translations of important texts which I felt reluctant to leave unpublished. As they were chiefly translations of Buddhist texts, I mentioned the fact to several of my Buddhist friends, and I was highly gratified when I was informed that H. M. the King of Siam, being desirous that the true teaching of the Buddha should become more widely known in Europe, had been graciously pleased to promise that material support without which the publication of these translations would have been impossible. I therefore resolved to do what I could for helping to spread a more correct knowledge of the religion of Buddha: but after the first three volumes of this new Series of the Sacred Books of the Buddhists is published, it will mainly depend on the interest which the public may take in this work, whether it can be continued or not.