'The Bhikkhus of the Great Council settled a doctrine contrary (to the true Faith). Altering the original text they made another text. They transposed Suttas which belonged to one place (of the collection) to another place; they destroyed the true meaning of the Faith, in the Vinaya and in the five collections (of the Suttas).... Rejecting single passages of the Suttas and of the proposed Vinaya, they composed other Suttas and another Vinaya which had (only) the appearance (of the genuine ones). Rejecting the following texts, viz. the Parivâra, which is the abstract of the contents (of the Vinaya), the six sections of the Abhidhamma, the Pa_t_isambhidâ, the Niddesa, and _some portions of the_ G_âtaka_, they composed new ones.' [5] Dhammapada, p. xxx, S. B. E., vol. x. Whatever else this may prove with regard to the way in which the ancient Canon was preserved, it shows at all events that _G_âtakas existed before the Vesâli Council as an integral portion of the sacred Canon, and we learn at the same time that it was possible even then to compose new chapters of that canon, and probably also to add new _G_âtaka stories. Whether we possess the text of the _G_âtaka in exactly that form in which it existed previous to the Council of Vesâli in 377 B.C. is another question. Strictly speaking we must be satisfied with the time of Vattagâmani in whose reign, 88-76 B.C., writing for literary purposes seems to have become more general in India, and the Buddhist Canon was for the first time reduced to writing. What we possess is the Pâli text of the _G_âtaka as it has been preserved in Ceylon. The tradition is that these 550 _G_âtaka stories, composed in Pâli, were taken to Ceylon by Mahinda, about 250 B.C., that the commentary was there translated into Singhalese, and that the commentary was retranslated into Pâli by Buddhaghosha, in the fifth century A.D. It is in this commentary alone that the text of the _G_âtakas has come down to us. This text has been edited by Dr. Fausböll. He has distinguished in his edition between three component elements, the tale, the frame, and the verbal interpretation. This text, of which the beginning was translated in 1880 by Prof. Rhys Davids, is now being translated by Mr. R. Chalmers, Mr. W. R. D. Rouse, Mr. H. T. Francis and Mr. R. A. Neil, and the first volume of their translation has appeared in 1895 under the able editorship of Professor Cowell.