126 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. (March, 1913. 
which have gradually deposited themselves on their first form. 
Now, as soon as this procedure began to be applied to the. 
comparison of the Northern and the Southern Buddhistic 
texts, a very clear and remarkable result at once declared 
itself. The northern texts—such as the Lalita-vistara, the 
characteristics as the Pali texts, nay often agrees with the 
latter almost verbatim through long passages. This I think 
absolutely decides the question of relative priority, in favour 
of the southern type of literature. The question is fully 
decided because we find now that the northern texts also 
well as in style, and often in words and phraseology. 
again arrive at the result that to the type called ‘Southern’ 
the north also bears witness. 
It remains to mention another interesting fact. If we 
recognize within the northern literature an element of southern 
character forming a kind of old substratum as 1t were on which 
p, we on 
the other hand also find, in a certain way, the northern litera- 
ture within the southern one. But where does it meet u 
two literatures fully characterized and determined by the way 
in which in each of them we meet with the particular features 
of the other ? We recognize the main characteristics of the 
southern literature in the northern one as soon as we descend 
from the surface of the northern texts to the oldest, so to 8aY 
