Key Ideas
The bodhisattva’s perfections — generosity, morality, patience, energy, wisdom.
The hare in the moon — self-sacrifice for a guest.
Vessantara — the prince who gave away everything, even his children.
Animals as moral beings — the monkey king who makes his body a bridge for his troop.
The Jātakas (“birth stories”) are a vast collection of tales about the previous lives of the Gautama Buddha, when, as a bodhisattva (a being destined for awakening), he was born as an animal, a god, a king, a merchant, a Brahmin or an outcaste, and practised the virtues that would eventually make him a Buddha. The Pāli Canon of Theravāda and the Abhidharma Buddhism contains 547 of them, in the form of verses with a prose commentary that tells the stories; others survive in Sanskrit (the Jātakamālā of Āryaśūra) and other languages. Many are folk tales and fables older than Buddhism, adapted to teach Buddhist morals; together they are one of the oldest and largest collections of stories in the world.
Among the best known: in the Śaśa Jātaka, a hare who has nothing to offer a hungry Brahmin (the god Śakra in disguise) leaps into a fire to give his own body as food — and Śakra draws the hare’s image on the moon. In the Mahākapi Jātaka, a monkey king stretches his body across a river as a bridge so that his troop can escape from hunters, and dies of his injuries. In the Nigrodhamiga Jātaka, a deer king offers himself in place of a pregnant doe to a king who hunts daily, and so moves the king that he grants protection to all animals. The last and greatest, the Vessantara Jātaka, tells of a prince who perfects generosity by giving away the kingdom’s magic white elephant, his wealth, and finally his own children and wife — a story celebrated in festivals across Southeast Asia and debated for its extremity.
The Jātakas were carved on the earliest Buddhist monuments — the stūpas of Bharhut and Sāñcī — painted on the walls of Ajanta, and told across Asia; they influenced the Pañcatantra, Aesop and medieval European collections.
Curiosities
did you know?- The hare who threw himself into the fire is the ‘hare in the moon’ of Asian folklore — the god Śakra drew his image on the moon.
- Jātaka scenes are carved on the stūpas of Bharhut and Sāñcī (2nd–1st century BCE) and painted in the Ajanta caves.
- The Vessantara Jātaka is performed as a great annual festival in Thailand, Laos and Myanmar.
Questions to Argue About
debate club →- Can giving be too generous?
Explore Next
related by shared connectionsAśvaghoṣa
The 1st–2nd century Buddhist poet and dramatist — author of the Buddhacarita, the first full epic of the Buddha’s life, and the Saundarananda — often called the first great poet of classical Sanskrit, before Kālidāsa.
Aśoka
The Mauryan emperor (r. c. 268–232 BCE) who, after the slaughter of his conquest of Kaliṅga, turned to Buddhism and governed by “dhamma” — non-violence, tolerance and welfare — proclaimed in edicts carved on rocks and pillars across India. His lion capital is India’s emblem; his wheel is on its flag.
Śāntideva
The 8th-century Nālandā monk whose Bodhicaryāvatāra (“The Way of the Bodhisattva”) is the most beloved poem of Mahāyāna Buddhism — a guide to compassion, patience and wisdom that the Dalai Lama calls his greatest inspiration.
The Dhammapada
423 verses of the Buddha’s teaching in 26 chapters — on the mind, the fool and the wise, anger, craving, the path and the true Brahmin. The best-loved Buddhist scripture, and the shortest door into the Buddha’s ethics.
Cordelia
Lear’s youngest daughter, who will not flatter, is disinherited, returns to rescue him, forgives him with “No cause, no cause” — and is hanged.
Buddhaghosa
The 5th-century Indian monk who went to Sri Lanka and translated and systematised the Theravāda commentaries — author of the Visuddhimagga, “The Path of Purification”, the definitive map of Theravāda doctrine and meditation.