Jataka Tales
 

Among ("amongst", for you citizens of the UK) most Theravadins, are the Jataka Tales regarded as having been spoken by the Buddha?

I don't know what the official Theravada position is about them, but I've always thought that the one's I've read seem to be rather like morality folk/fairy tales and not necessarily spoken by the Buddha.

There's something about them here:

Excerpt:

"Many of these poems and stories come from much older sources. Some of the stories are adapted from a Hindu text, Panchatantra Tales, written by Pandit Vishu Sharma around 200 BCE. And it is probable many of the other stories are based on folk tales and other oral traditions that have otherwise been lost."

http://buddhism.about.com/od/sacredb...taka-Tales.htm http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...lies/hands.gif

I can't imagine the Buddha telling tales to people... http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ies/tongue.gif

It is more heard in Zen circles about ancestors telling tales but I have never read or heard that the Buddha had done that.

http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ilies/wink.gif

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.

Thanks plwk,

It seems that the Buddha, indeed, told tales...

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The Jakata tales remind me a little of Aesops Fables which originated in ancient Greece.

Anyway, my personal opinion is that they didn't originate from the Buddha but were as mentioned in the quote #2.

Lay people in Buddhist countries might believe they were spoken by the Buddha because theyre probably mixed in with cultural legends and so forth.

I'd be interested in what our Theravadin members other than myself have to say about it however.

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Bhikkhu Bodhi writes an introduction about the jatakas here.

There are some jathaka tales which clearly show signs of hindu influences, personal sacrifices in the hope of a better rebirth, giving away one's kids and wife for charity hoping to gain merit through that etc. :) Personally I do not think they were told by the Buddha although some really do believe that.

Hello Deshy!

Yes. I insist... for me is hard to imagine the Buddha telling tales to people. Along the Pali Dhamma looks like he was not prone to that... but who knows?

Out from the topic:

Here, we have a saying, for people which is entangled or doing a mess with an idea that says... hey she/he are telling "Chinese tales" (cuentos chinos). http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ies/tongue.gif

Because at some time of the history of Mexico we have a huge Chinese immigration with all its noisy and colorful culture. As soon the generations started to speak spanish they were telling tales all the time and they seem absurd and about wasting time for Mexican people which just laugh at them going along with their day... I think that is why.

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