ever dwells with his fraternity, and who desires the perpetuation of this chronicle of Buddha; and likewise of Buddhamitta the tranquil and wise, sprung from the race of Mahimsāsaka, skilled in the canons of interpretation; and moreover of the monk Buddhadeva of clear intellect. May all good men lend me their favourable attention while I speak![1]
Inasmuch as this comment on the Jātaka, if it be expounded after setting forth the three Epochs, the distant, the middle, and proximate, will be clearly understood by those who hear it by being understood from the beginning, therefore I will expound it after setting forth the three Epochs. Accordingly from the very outset it will be well to determine the limits of these Epochs. Now the narrative of the Bodhisatta's existence, from the time that at the feet of Dīpankara he formed a resolution to become a Buddha to his rebirth in the Tusita heaven after leaving the Vessantara existence, is called the Distant Epoch. From his leaving the Tusita heaven to his attainment of omniscience on the throne of Knowledge, the narrative is called the Intermediate Epoch. And the Proximate Epoch is to be found in the various places in which he sojourned (during his ministry on earth). The following is
THE DISTANT EPOCH.
Tradition tells us that four asankheyyas[2] and a hundred thousand cycles ago there was a city called Amaravatī. In this city there dwelt a brahmin named Sumedha, of good family on both sides, on the father's and the
