Jataka Tales or Jatak Katha are very old and ancient part of the literature in the history. They have a long tradition of being passed on from generation to generation serving as source for moral behavior for humans in general. The stories are about past incarnations of Buddha, and are meant to teach the values of self-sacrifice, honesty and morality to common people.
Jataka tales deals with the previous births of Gautama Buddha in both human and animal form. The stories have an extensive cast and characters that fall in trouble and are rescued by Buddha in any form and have their happy ending. It holds a higher and significant place in Buddhism as inculcates virtues and morals among people especially young kids. It teaches and guides to lead life with high morals and values. The tales are similar to tales of Panchatantra which consists of different stories of wisdom and morals. The stories were written around 300 B.C in a language called ‘Pali’.
The greatness of Jataka tales
The greatness of these tales aren’t isolated, they were culturally adapted and permeated through borders. These tales were adapted in Greek myths as well as in the fables of Aesop. Persia also took them from india. These later migrated into stories of Chaucer in England and Boccaccio in Italy. In Sanskrit, Panchtantra used the adapted jatakakathas to teach law and economics, and the Katha SaritSagara used them for the development of knowledge as well as for the purposes of enjoyment.The Jataka, as we possess it, occurs in the second of the three great divisions of the Pali Buddhist Scriptures, and in the Miscellaneous Collection of Discourses of this division. It consists of 547 jatakas, each containing an account of the life of Gautam Buddha during some incarnation in one of his previous existences as a Bodhisatta, or being destined to enlightenment, before he became Buddha, the Enlightened One.
The style
Each separate story is embedded in a framework, which forms the Story of the Present. This is generally an account of some incident in the life of the historic Buddha, such as an act of disobedience or folly among the brethren of the Order, the discussion of a question of ethics, or an instance of eminent virtue. Buddha then tells a Story of the Past, an event in one of his previous existences which explains the present incident as a repetition of the former one or as a parallel case, and shews the moral consequences.
Fascinating, right? Who thought our bedtime stories have such rich and ancient history but enough with all the history and information.
