The Sanskrit manuscripts discovered in Central Asia include Sutras from the Samyukta and Ekottara Agamas (equivalent to the Samyutta and Anguttara Nikayas), a considerable part of the Dharmapada, fragments of the Sutta-Nipata and the Pratimoksha of the Sarvastivadin school.  These correspond fairly well with the Pali text but represent another recension and a somewhat different arrangement.  We have therefore here fragments of a Sanskrit version which must have been imported to Central Asia from northern India and covers, so far as the fragments permit us to judge, the same ground as the Vinaya and Suttas of the Pali Canon.  Far from displaying the diffuse and inflated style which characterizes the Mahayana texts it is sometimes shorter and simpler than our Pali version[650].

When was this version composed and what is its relation to the Pali?  A definite reply would be premature, for other Sanskrit texts may be discovered in Central Asia, but two circumstances connect this early Buddhist literature in Sanskrit with the epoch of Kanishka.  Firstly the Sanskrit Abhidharma of the Sarvastivadins seems to date from his council and secondly a Buddhist drama by Asvaghosha[651] of about the same time represents the Buddha as speaking in Sanskrit whereas the inferior characters speak Prakrit.  But these facts do not prove that Sanskrit was not the language of the canon at an earlier date[652] and it is not safe to conclude that because Asoka did not employ it for writing edicts it was not the sacred language of any section of Indian Buddhists.  On the other hand some of the Sanskrit texts contain indications that they are a translation from Pali or some vernacular[653].  In others are found historical allusions which suggest that they must have received additions after our era[654].

I have already raised the question of the relative value attaching to Pali and Sanskrit texts as authorities for early history.  Two instances will perhaps illustrate this better than a general discussion.  As already mentioned, the Vinaya of the Mulasarvastivadins makes the Buddha visit north-western India and Kashmir, whereas the Pali texts do not represent him as travelling further west than the country of the Kurus.  The Sanskrit account is not known to be confirmed by more ancient evidence, but there is nothing impossible in it, particularly as there are periods in the Buddha’s long life filled by no incidents.  The narrative however contains a prediction about Kanishka and therefore cannot be earlier than his reign.  Now there is no reason why the Pali texts should be silent about this journey, if the Buddha really made it, but one can easily imagine reasons for inventing it in the period of the Kushan kings.  North-western India was then full of monasteries and sacred sites and the same spirit which makes uncritical Buddhists in Ceylon and Siam assert to-day that the master visited their country impelled the monks of Peshawar and Kashmir to imagine a not improbable extension of his wanderings[655].