The popularity of the Jātakas as amusing stories may pass away. How can it stand against the rival claims of the fairy tales of science, and the entrancing, manysided story of man’s gradual rise and progress? But though these less fabulous and more attractive stories shall increasingly engage the attention of ourselves and of our children, we may still turn with appreciation to the ancient Book of the Buddhist Jātaka Tales as a priceless record of the childhood of our race. * * * * * I avail myself of this opportunity of acknowledging my indebtedness to several friends whose assistance has been too continuous to be specified on any particular page. Professor Childers, whose premature death was so great a blow to Pāli studies, and whose name I never think of without a feeling of reverent and grateful regret, had undertaken the translation of the Jātakas, and the first thirty-three pages are from his pen. They are the last memento of his earnest work: they stand exactly as he left them. Professor Estlin Carpenter, who takes a deep interest in this and cognate subjects, has been kind enough to read through all the proofs, and I owe to his varied scholarship many useful hints. And my especial thanks, and the thanks of any readers this work may meet with, are above all due to Professor Fausböll, without whose _editio princeps_ of the Pāli text, the result of self-denying labours spread over many years, this translation would not have been undertaken. T. W. RHYS DAVIDS. TABLES ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE HISTORY AND MIGRATIONS OF THE BUDDHIST BIRTH STORIES. TABLE I. INDIAN WORKS. 1. The JĀTAKA ATTHAVAṆṆANĀ. A collection, probably first made in the third or fourth century B.C., of stories previously existing, and ascribed to the Buddha, and put into its present form in Ceylon, in the fifth century A.D. The Pāli text is being edited by Professor Fausböll, of Copenhagen; vol. i. 1877, vol. ii. 1878, iii. in the press. English translation in the present work. 1_a._ Siŋhalese translation of No. 1, called PAN SIYA PANAS JĀTAKA POTA. Written in Ceylon in or about 1320 A.D. 1_b._ GUTTILA KĀWYAYA. A poetical version in Elu, or old Siŋhalese, of one of the stories in 1_a_, by _Badawœttœ̅wa Unnānse_, about 1415. Edited in Colombo, 1870, with introduction and commentary, by _Baṭuwan Tuḍāwa_. 1_c_. KUSA JĀTAKAYA. A poetical version in Elu, or old Siŋhalese, of one of the stories in 1_a_, by _Alagiawanna Mohoṭṭāle_, 1610. Edited in Colombo, with commentary, 1868. 1_d_. _An Eastern Love Story_. Translation in verse of 1_c_, by _Thomas Steele, C.C.S._, London, 1871. 1_e_. ASADISA JĀTAKAYA. An Elu poem, by _Rājādhirāja Siṅha_, king of Ceylon in 1780. 2. The CARIYĀ PIṬAKA. A book of the Buddhist Scriptures of the fourth century B.C., containing thirty-five of the oldest above stories. See Table IV.