Jataka Tales Analysis

1708 Words7 Pages

Jataka Tales Summarize the contents. (3 pages)

The Jataka Tales are part of the Sutta Pitaka of the Pali canon in Theravada Buddhism, which itself contains 10 000 teachings of the Buddha and his followers. Furthermore, the tales belong to a subdivision of the Sutta Pitaka known as the Khuddaka Nikaya (meaning “the minor collection”), which was the repository for content left out of the four other nikayas.

The content of the Jataka Tales resembles that of folktales and fables in general, with only the last 50 out of all 547 intended to be intelligible to readers by the authors, given that they do not have any access to contextual information or outstanding commentaries. These tales appear organised with respect to their increasing length in verses.

Theme: Incarnation or Appearance of Buddha

The Jataka Tales are a very voluminous collection of individual stories that involve the Gautama Buddha in his previous lives, incarnated in various forms such as a monkey, a king, a merchant, etc. The characters are typically faced with some unforeseeable turn of events, whereupon the incarnation of the Buddha always display some sign of virtue, and the story ends with a moral for the reader to reflect upon. They intend to bring out differing …show more content…

This tale tells the story of a man, Vasitthaka who lives with his parents, his wife and child. He cares well for his parents, and after his mother’s death; he continues to look after his father. However, Vasitthaka’s wife sees the father as an old, decrepit and irritable man, and convinces Vasitthaka to end his father’s days. She works out a plan for Vasitthaka to carry out, taking the old man to a cemetery, digging a hole, killing him with the shovel and burying him there. The Buddha appears here as Vasitthaka’s young son, and he is appalled by this evil plotting from his parents, and decides to prevent the action from taking

Open Document