Buddhist birth stories; or, Jataka tales, Volume 1
Religion
Buddhist birth stories; or, Jataka tales, Volume 1
Jataka stories, English
The reason for this is very plain. When a fable about a lion and
a jackal was told (as in No. 157) to show the advantage of a good
character, and it was necessary to choose a short title for it, it
was called ’The Lion Jātaka,’ or ‘The Jackal Jātaka,’ or even ’The
Good Character Jātaka’; and when a fable was told about a tortoise, to
show the evil results which follow on talkativeness (as in No. 215),
the fable might as well be called ‘The Chatterbox Jātaka’ as ‘The
Tortoise Jātaka,’ and the fable is referred to accordingly under both
those names. It must always have been difficult, if not impossible, to
fix upon a short title which should at once characterize the lesson
to be taught, and the personages through whose acts it was taught;
and different names would thus arise, and become interchangeable.
It would be wrong therefore to attach too much importance to the
difference of the names on the bas-reliefs and in the Jātaka Book. And
in translating the titles we need not be afraid to allow ourselves a
latitude similar to that which was indulged in by the early Buddhists
themselves.
There is yet further evidence confirmatory of the Dīpavaŋsa tradition.
The Buddhist Scriptures are sometimes spoken of as consisting of nine
different divisions, or sorts of texts (Aŋgāni), of which the seventh
is ’Jātakas,’ or ‘The Jātaka Collection’ (Jātakaŋ). This division of
the Sacred Books is mentioned, not only in the Dīpavaŋsa itself, and
in the Sumaŋgala Vilāsinī, but also in the Aŋguttara Nikāya (one of
the later works included in the Pāli Piṭakas), and in the Saddharma
Puṇḍarīka (a late, but standard Sanskrit work of the Northern
Buddhists).[73] It is common, therefore, to both of the two sections of
the Buddhist Church; and it follows that it was probably in use before
the great schism took place between them, possibly before the Council
of Vesāli itself. In any case it is conclusive as to the existence of a
collection of Jātakas at a very early date.
* * * * *
The text of the Jātaka Book, as now received among the Southern
Buddhists, consists, as will be seen from the translation, not only
of the stories, but of an elaborate commentary, containing a detailed
Explanation of the verse or verses which occur in each of the stories;
an Introduction to each of them, giving the occasion on which it
is said to have been told; a Conclusion, explaining the connexion
between the personages in the Introductory Story and the characters
in the Birth Story; and finally, a long general Introduction to the
whole work. It is, in fact, an edition by a later hand of the earlier
stories; and though I have called it concisely the Jātaka Book, its
full title is ‘The Commentary on the Jātakas.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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