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History Through Literature: Collected Stories

Jataka
January 10, 2009
ORIAS WORKING GROUP 2009

TOPIC: The Jataka Tales

SPEAKERS: Padmanabh S. Jaini, Prof emeritus, Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies/Center for Buddhist Studies, UCB and Dave Maier, Berkeley Repertory School of Theatre

WHERE: 2223 Fulton Street, 6th floor - U. C. Berkeley

WHEN: Saturday, January 19, 2009- 10:00AM - 1:00PM Registration required - space is limited.

Focus story: Banyan Deer (or Nigrodha-Miga Jataka Jataka Pali No.12.)

JATAKA
Resources

illustration for jataka

["The Turtle Who Couldn't Stop Talking" | KACCHAPA-JĀTAKA]

The Jataka Tales ("Birth Stories") are collections of teaching stories depicting incidents during the earlier lives of the Buddha leading to his Enlightenment. The stories illustrate Buddhist virtues through stories of these incarnations, both human and animal – particularly the virtues of charity, compassion, and self-sacrifice. Jataka have been performed, written, and depicted in art since the earliest years of Buddhism in India. Some of the stories also traveled along the trade routes and influenced storytellers in many other world areas. The original collection was, in turn, amended and added to by other world traditions over two millennia.

 

jataka deer image from dunhuang

TEXTS

for children

for adults

 

Texts for children:

Front Matter

  1. The Monkey and the Crocodile
  2. How the Turtle Saved His Own Life
  3. The Merchant of Seri
  4. The Turtle Who Couldn't Stop Talking
  5. The Ox Who Won the Forfeit
  6. The Sandy Road
  7. The Quarrel of the Quails
  8. The Measure of Rice
  9. The Foolish, Timid Rabbit
  10. The Wise and Foolish Merchant
  11. The Elephant Girly-face
  12. The Banyan Deer
  13. The Princes and the Water-Sprite
  14. The King's White Elephant
  15. The Ox Who Never Envied the Pig
  16. Grannie's Blackie
  17. The Crab and the Crane
  18. Why the Owl Is Not King of the Birds
  1. The Girl Monkey and the String of Pearls
  2. The Three Fishes
  3. The Tricky Wolf and the Rats
  4. The Woodpecker, Turtle, and Deer
  5. The Golden Goose
  6. The Stupid Monkeys
  7. The Cunning Wolf
  8. The Penny-Wise Monkey
  9. The Red-Bud Tree
  10. The Woodpecker and the Lion
  11. The Otters and the Wolf
  12. How the Monkey Saved His Troop
  13. The Hawks and their Friends
  14. The Brave Little Bowman
  15. The Foolhardy Wolf
  16. The Stolen Plow
  17. The Lion in Bad Company
  18. The Wise Goat and the Wolf
  19. Prince Wicked and the Grateful Animals
  20. Beauty and the Brownie
  21. The Elephant and the Dog

Picture books:

  • Jeanne M. Lee. I Once Was a Monkey: Stories Buddha Told.
    Lee invents a frame story of the Buddha as narrator (similar to the Pali texts) for this set of Jataka stories. In Lee's frame story a statue of Buddha in temple tells a set of Jataka stories to animals hiding from monsoon rains. Beautifully illustrated by the author. (elementary school)
  • Sarah Conover, Valerie Wahl (Illustrator) Kindness: A Treasury of Buddhist Wisdom for Children and Parents. Eastern Washington University Press (January 2001)
    Conover includes Jataka stories along with other Buddhist stories from Tibet, Japan, and China. With the classroom teacher in mind, she has included good source references in the back. (middle and high school)

Texts for adults:
BACKGROUND
AND LESSONS
  • Modern Languages MLLL-2003. World Literature: Frametales. Laura Gibbs, Ph.D. - This online course has a useful unit on the Jataka Tales using stories from the The Jataka, or Stories of the Buddha's Former Births (in six volumes). Editor: E.B. Cowell. 1895.
    http://www.mythfolklore.net/2003frametales/index.html

  • "Haven’t I Seen You Somewhere Before? Samsara and karma in the Jataka Tales" Edsitement lesson on Jataka.

    • Guiding Questions

    • What are the Jataka Tales, and what is their purpose?
    • What are karma and samsara? How are these concepts used in the Jataka Tales?

    Learning Objectives
    After completing this lesson students will be able to:

    • Become familiar with one form of Buddhist storytelling.
    • Explain what the Jataka Tales are, and their purpose as teaching tools.
    • Explain the concepts of karma and samsara.
    • Identify these concepts in the text, and explain how their presence in the tale teaches and supports the lessons of the stories.

    http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=592

  • Indian Fairy Tales Selected And Edited By Joseph Jacobs, Editor Of "Folk-Lore", Illustrated By John D. Batten. London David Nutt, 57-59 Long Acre; New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons [1912]. This old collection includes some interesting general notes on the Indian story tradition and specific story notes on possible connections between Jataka tales and other story collections (including Panchatantra and Uncle Remus). [Sacred Texts site.]
    http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/ift/ift32.htm

  • T.W. Rhys Davids, Buddhist Birth-Stories (Published by Asian Educational Services, 1999 - first published 1878?)
    http://books.google.com/books?id=ZdPNGIASwOsCa
    http://www.archive.org/details/buddhistbirth00daviuoft

  • His Holiness the Dalai Lama teaching on the Jataka Tales of the King of Fishes. ( Venue: Main Temple, Dharamsala India - Date: 21st February 2008)
    http://www.dalailama.com/page.208.htm
    • The Jataka story is read with commentary from 37min to 53min in the taped lesson on the importance of cultivating the habit of living in a virtous mental state, helping others. Also see story illustrated at http://www.himalayanart.org/image.cfm/50205.html.
    • "Collections of stories of the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni's former lives, illustrating his exercise of the qualities of a bodhisattva, are found in all Buddhist traditions. The collection that His Holiness reads from was compiled by Ashvaghosha, who was an accomplished non-Buddhist polemicist early in his career, but was defeated and converted to Buddhism by Aryadeva. He is renowned for his poetry. The story His Holiness reads concerns the Buddha's former life as a leader of fish. When drought threatened to dry up the lake in which the fish lived with his companions, he made a prayer that, by the power of the truth of the fact that he had harmed no other being for countless lives, it should rain and so save the fish. Rain soon fell."
    • 75. MACCHA-JĀTAKA (How the good fish ended a drought and saved his kinsfolk.)
      http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/j1/j1078.htm#page_185
ART

CHINA | JAPAN

INDIA

ox image from ajanta

"Ox Who Won the Forfeit" (Wall painting, Ajanta Caves, India.)

jataka image deer story

Ruru (Deer) Jataka, bas-relief, Bhārhut, Indian, 2nd century BCE

 

SOUTHEAST ASIA

jataka image of tiger story

 "Hungry Tigress" - The Bodhisatta offering his life to save the cubs (Thailand)
http://www.ignca.nic.in/jatak025.htm

TIBET

Jataka Page | Jataka Resource Page | Jataka Outline Page | Avadana Page

"In Himalayan and Tibetan culture the Jatakas are commonly depicted in art and follow a famous Indian text called the Jatakamala narrating thirty-four morality tales often using animals as the central subject. This set of paintings depicts the original thirty-four stories along with an additional seventy-four making one hundred and eight stories in all, compiled by the 3rd Karmapa Rangjung Dorje. See blockprint images of all one hundred and eight Jataka stories."

image of jataka story of tiger from tibet

"Hungry Tigress" - The Bodhisatta offering his life to save the cubs (Tibet)
jataka image from tibet

ORIAS Working Groups are established to provide professional development support for K-11 and community college teachers with shared interests in international studies. The working groups provide teachers with the opportunity to extend their content knowledge by participating in seminars with University scholars; meeting with colleagues to share resources and experiences; and working independently or collaboratively on classroom materials with ORIAS staff.

Co-sponsored by the Office of Resources for International and Area Studies (ORIAS), the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, and the Center for South Asia Studies at U. C. Berkeley, and the Institute of East Asian Studies.

For further information contact Michele Delattre at ORIAS: 510-643-0868 or oriasberkeley.edu