Jataka tales

The Jātaka circa ~5th century BCE to 3rd century AD, (meaning "Birth Story", "related to a birth") are a voluminous body of literature native to India which mainly concern the previous births of Gautama Buddha in both human and animal form. Jataka stories, were depicted on the railings and torans of the stupas.

• This is not a lion’s roaring, Nor a tiger’s, nor a panther’s; Dressed in a lion’s skin ’Tis a wretched ass that roars!
  • The future Buddha (as quoted in) The Ass in the Lion’s Skin, (Fausböll, No. 189)

• Long might the ass, Clad in a lion’s skin, Have fed on the barley green. But he brayed! And that moment he came to ruin.
  • The hawker (as quoted in) The Ass in the Lion’s Skin, (Fausböll, No. 189)

• The future Buddha thought to himself, “Long expecting, wishing to admonish the king, have I sought for some means of doing so. This tortoise must have made friends with the wild ducks; and they must have made him bite hold of the stick, and have flown up into the air to take him to the hills. But he, being unable to hold his tongue when he hears any one else talk, must have wanted to say something, and let go the stick; and so must have fallen down from the sky, and thus lost his life.” And saying, “Truly, O king! those who are called chatter-boxes—people whose words have no end—come to grief like this”
  • The Talkative Tortoise (Fausböll, No. 215)

• Once upon a time, when Brahma-datta was reigning in Benāres, the future Buddha returned to life in the womb of his chief queen; and after the conception ceremony had been performed, he was safely born. And when the day came for choosing a name, they called him Prince Brahma-datta. He grew up in due course; and when he was sixteen years old, went to Takkasilā,26 and became accomplished in all arts. And after his father died he ascended the throne, and ruled the kingdom with righteousness and equity. He gave judgments without partiality, hatred, ignorance, or fear.27 Since he thus reigned with justice, with justice also his ministers administered the law. Lawsuits being thus decided with justice, there were none who brought false cases. And as these ceased, the noise and tumult of litigation ceased in the king’s court. Though the judges sat all day in the court, they had to leave without any one coming for justice. It came to this, that the Hall of Justice would have to be closed!
  • A Lesson for Kings (Fausböll, No. 151)

• Anger he conquers by calmness,
  And by goodness the wicked;
  The stingy he conquers by gifts,
  And by truth the speaker of lies.
  Such is the nature of this king!
  • The Other, quoted in A Lesson for Kings (Fausböll, No. 151)

• Anger he conquers by calmness,
  And by goodness the wicked;
  The stingy he conquers by gifts,
  And by truth the speaker of lies.
  Such is the nature of this king!
  • The Other, quoted in A Lesson for Kings (Fausböll, No. 151.)

• Oh! wise man, grievous is rebirth in a new existence, and the dissolution of the body in each successive place where we are reborn. I am subject to birth, to decay, to disease, to death,—it is right, being such, that I should strive to attain the great deathless Nirvāna, which is tranquil, and free from birth, and decay, and sickness, and grief and joy; surely there must be a road that leads to Nirvāna and releases man from existence. For as in this world there is pleasure as the correlative of pain, so where there is existence there must be its opposite the cessation of existence; and as where there is heat there is also cold which neutralizes it, so there must be a Nirvāna that extinguishes (the fires of) lust and the other passions; and as in opposition to a bad and evil condition there is a good and blameless one, so where there is evil Birth there must also be Nirvāna, called the Birthless, because it puts an end to all rebirth.
  • The Nidanakatha (or the Three Epochs) #16

• Having thus in nine similes pondered upon the advantages connected with retirement from the world, the wise Sumedha gave away at his own house, as aforesaid, an immense hoard of treasure to the indigent and wayfarers and sufferers, and kept open house. And renouncing all pleasures, both material and sensual, departing from the city of Amara, away from the world in Himavanta he made himself a hermitage near the mountain called Dhammaka, and built a hut and a perambulation hall free from the five defects which are hindrances (to meditation)... And when he had thus given up the world, forsaking this hut, crowded with eight drawbacks, he repaired to the foot of a tree with its ten advantages, and rejecting all sorts of grain lived constantly upon wild fruits. And strenuously exerting himself both in sitting and in standing and in walking, within a week he became the possessor of the eight Attainments, and of the five Supernatural Faculties; and so, in accordance with his prayer, he attained the might of supernatural knowledge.
  • The Nidanakatha (or the Three Epochs) #37

• So also do thou, having fulfilled the moral precepts in the four stages, Ever guard the Sīla as the Yak guards her tail. But considering further, “These cannot be the only Buddha-making conditions,” and beholding the fourth Perfection of Wisdom, he thought thus, “O wise Sumedha, do thou from this day forth fulfil the perfection of Wisdom, avoiding no subject of knowledge, great, small, or middling, do thou approach all wise men and ask them questions; for as the mendicant friar on his begging rounds, avoiding none of the families, great and small, that he frequents, and wandering for alms from place to place, speedily gets food to support him, even so shalt thou, approaching all wise men, and asking them questions, become a Buddha.” And he strenuously resolved to attain the fourth perfection of Wisdom.
  • The Nidanakatha (or the Three Epochs) #2=134

• For then, they say, angels in front of him carried sixty thousand torches, and behind him too, and on his right hand, and on his left. And while some deities, undefined85 on the edge of the horizon, held torches aloft; other deities, and the Nāgas, and Winged Creatures, and other superhuman beings, bore him company—doing homage with heavenly perfumes, and garlands, and sandal-wood powder, and incense. And the whole sky was full of Paricchātaka flowers from Indra’s heaven, as with the pouring rain when thick clouds gather. Heavenly songs floated around; and on every side thousands of musical instruments sounded, as when the thunder roars in the midst of the sea, or the great ocean heaves against the boundaries of the world!
  • The Nidanakatha (or the Three Epochs) #271

• It is well known that amongst the Buddhist Scriptures there is one book in which a large number of old stories, fables, and fairy tales, lie enshrined in an edifying commentary; and have thus been preserved for the study and amusement of later times. How this came about is not at present quite certain. The belief of orthodox Buddhists on the subject is this. The Buddha, as occasion arose, was accustomed throughout his long career to explain and comment on the events happening around him, by telling of similar events that had occurred in his own previous births. The experience, not of one lifetime only, but of many lives, was always present to his mind; and it was this experience he so often used to point a moral, or adorn a tale. The stories so told are said to have been reverently learnt and repeated by his disciples; and immediately after his death 550 of them were gathered together in one collection, called the Book of the 550 Jātakas or Births; the commentary to which gives for each Jātaka, or Birth Story, an account of the event in Gotama’s life which led to his first telling that particular story.
  • Introduction to Buddhist Birth Stories; or Jataka Tales,... Edited by V. Fausboll, and Translated by T.W. Rhys Davids, Vol. 1, 1880

• What about the literary sources regarding the beginning of historic writing in India? The problem about these sources is that scholars are seldom unanimous about their dates. Let us take the case of the Buddhist Jataka stories. I believe that they relate to conditions around 500 BC and this I do mainly on the ground that the principality of Kasi was an independent kingdom under Brahmadatta when the Jataka stories were being narrated and that this independence was lost when the Magadhan king Ajatasatru annexed it in the sixth/fifth century BC. The logic splitting over the Jatakas has never ended; some people argue that their verse portion is earlier than their prose portion, and for some inscrutable reason, D.D. Kosambi, a mathematician who thought he knew how ancient Indian history should be written, took it for granted that the context of the Jataka stories included early centuries AD. In any case, the Jatakas were familiar with writing and this literary text should suggest that writing was known in historic India around 500 BC.
  • Dilip K. Chakrabarti, Review of K. Rajan, Early Writing System: A Journey from Graffiti to Brahmi. DOI: 10.1177/0376983617694685

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Jataka tales