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 _G_âtakamâlâ 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 _G_âtakas. It is incontestable that in a great many cases _S_ûra 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. _S_ûra'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 _G_âtaka 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 _S_ûra. 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. [18] It is but seldom that the verses contain a mere repetition or development of what has just been told in the prose immediately preceding. Of this kind are XIII, 16; XIX, 5; XXV, 1; XXX, 5. [19] Here are some other instances. In the Bhisa_g_âtaka, Fausb. IV, 309, 11, read puttî ... sabbakâmî, cp. _G_âtakamâlâ XIX, 13, ibid. 1. 22 sabbasamattaveda_m_ and 1. 24 pû_g_entu, cp. _G_âtakamâlâ XIX, 16; ibid. p. 310, 3 lattha, not alattha, cp. XIX, 18.--In the _K_ullaha_m_sa_g_âtaka, F. V, 340, 12 kha_nd_a_m_ the reading of _B^{ds}_ and _S^{dr}_ is confirmed by _S_ûra, XXII, 37 ûna_m_. Ibid. 343, 16 I read tâvad eva _k_a te lâbho kat' assa yâ_k_anâ _k_a me, comparing _S_ûra XXII, 50, and from XXII, 80 I infer that F. V, 350, 16 mama is to be read for dhamma_m_, vasu for vaso, sabbatth' instead of sabb' atth'.--In F. I, 213, 13 a prose passage may be corrected from the parallel prose of _G_âtakamâlâ. (p. 98, 8 of the edition); divide the words thus, ku_kkh_ito _g_âto a_nd_akosam padâletvâ.