The Dvāviṃśatyavadānakathā is a compilation of Buddhist Birth-stories of comparatively late origin. Much of it, particularly of the prose portions, was borrowed from the Avadānaśataka at a time when the MSS. of that work were already faulty. The recension of the Avadānaśataka, from which the author of the Dvā. took his material, was that to which Speyer's MS. D belonged. The language in which it is written resembles that of most of the Northern Buddhist texts, in particular the Vicitrakarṇikāvadanā— that is to say, a kind of popularly developed Sanskrit, which shows for the most part the same line of growth as that followed by the Prākrit dialects many centuries before. The solution of the history of this dialect, and of the question whether, as is probable, it was only a written language, depends on the collection of more material. Below I give a detailed list of the points in which the Sanskrit of the Dvā. differs from classical Sanskrit both in forms, in syntax, and vocabulary. It is possible that scribal errors may be responsible for some of the forms. Few of them are invariable; most are found side by side with their classical equivalents. It will be seen that the majority of the forms and constructions can be paralleled from Pāli and the Prākrits. The figures placed in brackets after forms show the number of times they occur in the text.