The Jatakas: Birth Stories of Bodhisatta

The Jatakas: Birth Stories of Bodhisatta

Sarah Shaw

Language: English

Pages: 406

ISBN: 818475034X

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


When my concentrated mind was purified, I directed it to the knowledge of the recollection of past lives' The Buddha on the night of his enlightenment Associated with the living traditions of folk tale, drama and epic, the Jatakas recount the development of the Bodhisatta the being destined to become the present Buddha in his final life not just through the events of one lifetime but of hundreds. Written in Pali, the language of the Theravada Buddhist canon, the Jatakas comprise one of the largest and oldest collections of stories in the world dating from the fifth century BCE to the third century CE. Generations in South and South-East Asia have grown up with these tales. This volume contains twenty-six stories drawn from various ancient sources, and each story reflects one of the ten perfections giving, restraint, renunciation, wisdom, strength, acceptance, truthfulness, resolve, loving kindness and equanimity. A detailed introduction elaborates on the ten perfections, explains the forms of enlightenment as well as the structure, and the historical and geographical contexts of the stories. Sarah Shaw brings to life the teachings of Buddhism for the scholar and lay reader alike.

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chanting and private meditation, and ‘assembly’ does not really carry the same emotional weight such a place would have had for those who used it. Other meanings of the word are also evident in the stories. Sometimes dhamma is simply ‘what is right’ or ‘justice’ and in this sense accords with the ancient Indian concept of dharma. It can mean ‘how things are’ or even just ‘things’: to leave it untranslated in some such cases would be to lend it a weight that the context does not justify. Another

tree: a partridge, a monkey and an elephant. But they became disrespectful, lacking in deference and common courtesy towards one another. So they then thought, ‘It is not right that we live like this. Why don’t we live so that we accord due respect to the one of us who is the eldest?’ ‘But which of us is the eldest?’ they wondered. One day as the three of them sat at the roots of the tree they had an idea as to how to find out. The partridge and the monkey asked the elephant, ‘Good elephant, what

monks who kept other early Buddhist texts alive before the advent of writing. 11 They would probably then have been related to an audience, comprising a mixture of laity and monks, at the kind of festivals where they are told now: full moon or uposatha days at temples, or danas, meals given to monks where food is offered and blessings given in return. The first story, as we see, suggests, in its recipients a certain lay orientation. With its extensive homage and introduction to the theme, it is

the cause of this. ‘Queen Canda prays for a son; I’ll give her a son!’ he said. When he looked around he saw the Bodhisatta as suitable for her child. Before that time the Bodhisatta had been king in Varanasi for twenty years. After his death he had taken rebirth in an Annex hell (literally, ‘adjunct hell’) and suffered there for twenty thousand years and had then been reborn in the heaven of the Thirty-Three Gods. He remained there as long as his life lasted and, on dying, he wished to go to a

My son has now been killed and increases the soil in the earth. 52. Now bitter enemies rejoice, delighted. But I see the charioteer returning after killing my own child.” 53. A mother sees an empty chariot and the charioteer returning, alone. With eyes filled with tears she weeps and implores: 54. “Was he deaf, was he crippled, did he wail when you struck him on the ground? Tell me this, charioteer. 55. How did a deaf cripple ward you off with his hands and feet, when struck on

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