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**denyffishh** · 04-26-2011, 10:40 AM

Firstly... Jataka
Secondly....
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/kawasaki/
The Jataka, one of the books in the Khuddaka Nikaya, contains 550 stories the Buddha told of his previous lifetimes as an aspiring Bodhisatta. The Jataka stories are classic Buddhist morality tales, often witty, and filled with a host of colorful characters: clever monkeys, wise elephants, brave princes, wicked ogres, and the occasional benign tree spirit. Although they have sometimes been compared to the West's Grimms' fairy tales, they are not simply amusing diversions from "serious" Dhamma literature. Unlike Grimms', whose moral lessons are often ambiguous and occasionally even downright sinister, the Jataka tales are replete with important lessons woven from the unmistakable threads of heightened virtue and liberating wisdom, twin hallmarks of the Buddha's legacy of transcendent freedom. Thirdly...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jataka_tales
Within the Pali tradition, there are also many apocryphal Jatakas of later composition (some dated even to the 19th century) but these are treated as a separate category of literature from the "Official" Jataka stories that have been more-or-less formally canonized from at least the 5th century — as attested to in ample epigraphic and archaeological evidence, such as extant illustrations in bas relief from ancient temple walls. Some of the apocryphal Jatakas (in Pali) show direct appropriations from Hindu sources, with amendments to the plots to better reflect Buddhist morals.

04-26-2011, 10:40 AM	#4
denyffishh Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 443 Senior Member	Firstly... Jataka Secondly.... http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/kawasaki/ The Jataka, one of the books in the Khuddaka Nikaya, contains 550 stories the Buddha told of his previous lifetimes as an aspiring Bodhisatta. The Jataka stories are classic Buddhist morality tales, often witty, and filled with a host of colorful characters: clever monkeys, wise elephants, brave princes, wicked ogres, and the occasional benign tree spirit. Although they have sometimes been compared to the West's Grimms' fairy tales, they are not simply amusing diversions from "serious" Dhamma literature. Unlike Grimms', whose moral lessons are often ambiguous and occasionally even downright sinister, the Jataka tales are replete with important lessons woven from the unmistakable threads of heightened virtue and liberating wisdom, twin hallmarks of the Buddha's legacy of transcendent freedom. Thirdly... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jataka_tales Within the Pali tradition, there are also many apocryphal Jatakas of later composition (some dated even to the 19th century) but these are treated as a separate category of literature from the "Official" Jataka stories that have been more-or-less formally canonized from at least the 5th century — as attested to in ample epigraphic and archaeological evidence, such as extant illustrations in bas relief from ancient temple walls. Some of the apocryphal Jatakas (in Pali) show direct appropriations from Hindu sources, with amendments to the plots to better reflect Buddhist morals.
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