Buddhist Birth Stories; or, Jataka Tales Volume 1
Overview
Published in London by Trübner & Company in 1880, “Buddhist Birth Stories; or, Jataka Tales” represents the first scholarly English translation of selections from the Pali Jatakas, one of the most extensive and influential story collections in world literature. The volume contains two major components: the complete Nidana-katha (introductory narrative detailing the Buddha’s life from distant past lives through his enlightenment) and translations of selected individual Jataka tales. V. Fausbøll, who dedicated much of his career to producing the first critical edition of the complete Pali Jataka text (published 1877-1897 in six volumes), provided the edited Pali text, while T. W. Rhys Davids, the pioneering British Pali scholar who would found the Pali Text Society in 1881, contributed the English translation and extensive scholarly apparatus.
This collaborative work emerged during a critical period in Buddhist studies when European scholars were first gaining systematic access to Pali canonical texts preserved in Sri Lanka, Burma (Myanmar), and Thailand. Prior to Fausbøll’s critical edition, the Jatakas existed only in diverse manuscript traditions scattered across Theravada Buddhist countries, with textual variations, interpolations, and scribal errors accumulated over centuries of transmission. Fausbøll’s philological expertise in comparing manuscripts from different traditions enabled establishment of reliable Pali texts, while Rhys Davids’ linguistic mastery and cultural knowledge produced translations that balanced scholarly accuracy with readability.
The 1880 publication introduced Western audiences not merely to entertaining folk tales but to a sophisticated literary corpus central to Buddhist ethical instruction, philosophical exposition, and artistic inspiration across South and Southeast Asia for over two millennia. The work established the Jatakas as legitimate subjects for academic study, inspiring subsequent translations, comparative folklore research, and recognition of Asian narrative traditions’ literary and cultural significance.
The Jataka Tradition
The term “Jataka” derives from Sanskrit/Pali jāti (birth), signifying “birth stories” or “stories of previous births.” The canonical Pali Jataka collection, preserved in the Khuddaka Nikaya (Minor Collection) of the Sutta Pitaka (Discourse Basket) within the Theravada Tripitaka (Three Baskets) canonical corpus, consists of 547 tales arranged in progressive order from shorter one-verse stories to lengthy narrative poems. Each Jataka purports to recount an incident from one of the Buddha’s previous lives as a Bodhisattva (enlightenment-being) working toward eventual Buddhahood through perfection of virtues across countless rebirths.
The stories encompass remarkable diversity:
- Animal fables: The Bodhisattva appears as various creatures—monkey, elephant, deer, parrot, fish—demonstrating wisdom, compassion, and self-sacrifice
- Human tales: Stories of kings, merchants, ascetics, and ordinary people facing moral dilemmas
- Cosmic narratives: Accounts involving gods (devas), demons (asuras), and supernatural events
- Historical legends: Tales set in identifiable geographical locations and dynasties, blending myth with cultural memory
While the 547 canonical Jatakas constitute the authoritative Theravada collection, the Jataka tradition extends beyond this fixed corpus. Mahayana Buddhist traditions developed their own Jataka collections, Sanskrit Jataka compilations circulated in North India and Central Asia, and vernacular Jataka traditions emerged in virtually every Buddhist culture—Sinhalese, Burmese, Thai, Khmer, Tibetan, Chinese, Japanese, and others. The stories’ malleability allowed adaptation to local contexts while maintaining core Buddhist ethical messages.
Structure and Format of Jatakas
Each canonical Jataka follows a standardized four-part structure established in the Pali commentarial tradition:
Paccuppanna-vatthu (Present Story): An event in the Buddha’s contemporary life—typically someone asking a question, monks debating an issue, or laypeople facing a problem—prompts the Buddha to recount a relevant past-life story. This framing device situates the ancient tale within immediate pedagogical context.
Atita-vatthu (Past Story): The main narrative recounting the Bodhisattva’s previous incarnation. These range from brief anecdotes of a few verses to elaborate tales spanning hundreds of verses. The story typically presents a moral dilemma, demonstrates virtuous conduct, or illustrates karmic consequences.
Gatha (Verses): The canonical Jataka verses, considered the oldest stratum of the text, often forming the climax or moral summary of the story. The prose narrative in which these verses are embedded belongs to the later commentarial tradition (Jataka Atthakatha), traditionally attributed to the fifth-century commentator Buddhaghosa.
Samodhana (Identification): The Buddha identifies the correspondences between characters in the past story and individuals in the present, revealing karmic connections across lifetimes. Typically the Buddha identifies himself as the Bodhisattva protagonist, while other story characters are revealed to be contemporary disciples, family members, or even adversaries reborn in the current era.
This sophisticated narrative framework serves multiple functions: it authenticates the stories as Buddha-word (buddhavacana), demonstrates karmic continuity across rebirths, provides moral instruction through compelling narrative, and creates intimacy between the ancient past and the living Buddhist community.
Dating and Historical Development
Scholarly consensus places the Jataka tradition’s origins in the early Buddhist period, though precise dating remains contentious. The Buddha himself likely employed illustrative stories in his teaching, and early Buddhist communities preserved and expanded this narrative corpus. The verses (gathas) embedded in the Jatakas may represent some of the earliest Buddhist literature, potentially contemporary with or only slightly later than the canonical discourses (suttas).
Archaeological evidence suggests Jataka stories were widely known by the third century BCE. The magnificent carved reliefs at Bharhut (circa 100 BCE) and Sanchi (circa first century BCE-first century CE) stupas in central India depict numerous Jataka scenes with identifying inscriptions, demonstrating that these stories formed part of popular Buddhist iconography and devotional culture in the Mauryan and post-Mauryan periods. The Ajanta cave murals (circa second century BCE to sixth century CE) include elaborate Jataka illustrations, confirming their centrality to Buddhist artistic traditions.
The prose framework (Jataka Atthakatha) reached its present form considerably later, traditionally attributed to Buddhaghosa’s fifth-century CE commentarial work at Mahavihara monastery in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka. Buddhaghosa systematized existing Sinhalese commentarial traditions, translating them into Pali and establishing the canonical commentaries still used in Theravada Buddhism today. However, the prose narratives likely drew on much older oral and written storytelling traditions, incorporating materials that circulated independently before being integrated into the Buddhist canonical framework.
V. Fausbøll and the Critical Edition
Viggo Fausbøll (1821-1908) was a Danish scholar of Sanskrit, Pali, and comparative philology who became the first European to produce a critical edition of the complete Pali Jataka text. Born in Copenhagen and educated at the University of Copenhagen, Fausbøll studied under pioneering Indologist N. L. Westergaard and became professor of Indian languages at the University of Copenhagen in 1855, a position he held until retirement.
Fausbøll’s magnum opus, “The Jātaka, together with its commentary, being tales of the anterior births of Gotama Buddha,” appeared in seven volumes published between 1877 and 1897 by Trübner & Company in London. This monumental work presented the Pali text of all 547 Jatakas with their prose commentaries, established through comparison of manuscripts from Sri Lanka, Burma, and Thailand. The sixth volume (1896) contained indices of immense value for subsequent scholarship, while the seventh volume presented additional textual materials and corrections.
The critical edition employed rigorous philological methods: collating variant readings from multiple manuscript traditions, identifying interpolations and corruptions, reconstructing original forms where manuscripts diverged, and providing apparatus criticus noting significant textual variations. This scholarly infrastructure enabled reliable study of the Jatakas for the first time, forming the foundation for all subsequent Jataka research and translation.
Fausbøll’s 1880 collaboration with Rhys Davids on “Buddhist Birth Stories” served as an accessible introduction to the complete edition, offering Western audiences a curated selection with scholarly context before the daunting multi-volume Pali edition was completed.
T. W. Rhys Davids and Early Pali Studies
Thomas William Rhys Davids (1843-1922) was among the most influential figures in establishing Buddhist studies as an academic discipline in the West. Born in Colchester, England, Rhys Davids studied Sanskrit at the University of Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland) before entering the Ceylon Civil Service in 1864. During his years in Ceylon (Sri Lanka), he learned Pali, studied Buddhist texts with traditional monks, and developed profound appreciation for Buddhist philosophy and culture.
Upon returning to Britain in 1872, Rhys Davids dedicated himself to promoting Pali studies and Buddhist scholarship. He founded the Pali Text Society in 1881, the organization that would publish critical editions of the entire Pali canon and commentaries over subsequent decades, making these texts accessible to global scholarship. The PTS established romanized Pali as the standard for scholarly work, developed Pali-English dictionaries, and produced authoritative editions that remain in use today.
Rhys Davids’ scholarly output was prodigious: translations of major Buddhist texts including the Dialogues of the Buddha (Digha Nikaya), Questions of King Milinda (Milinda Pañha), and numerous other works; the seminal textbook “Buddhism: Being a Sketch of the Life and Teachings of Gautama, the Buddha” (1877); and scholarly articles establishing Buddhism as worthy of serious academic study alongside Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
His work on the 1880 “Buddhist Birth Stories” included not only translation but an extensive 164-page introduction covering:
- The Buddha’s life according to Buddhist tradition
- Buddhist cosmology and the doctrine of rebirth
- The structure and history of the Jataka literature
- Comparisons with other folklore traditions
- Philological analysis of Pali terminology
- Historical and cultural context of ancient India
This scholarly apparatus provided Western readers with comprehensive orientation to Buddhist thought-worlds, making the Jatakas comprehensible within their proper religious and cultural frameworks.
Content of the 1880 Volume
The volume’s centerpiece is the complete translation of the Nidana-katha, the lengthy introductory narrative preceding the 547 individual Jatakas in the Pali tradition. This text, also attributed to Buddhaghosa’s fifth-century commentarial work, recounts:
-
The Distant Past (avidure nidana): The Bodhisattva’s vow in the presence of the Buddha Dipankara countless eons ago to attain enlightenment, followed by accounts of his subsequent lives perfecting the ten perfections (paramitas): generosity, morality, renunciation, wisdom, effort, patience, truthfulness, determination, loving-kindness, and equanimity.
-
The Not-So-Distant Past (avidure nidana): The Bodhisattva’s penultimate life in the Tusita heaven (the celestial realm where future Buddhas reside before their final birth), his survey of the world to determine the optimal time and place for his final incarnation, and his descent to be conceived in Queen Maya’s womb.
-
The Recent Past (santike nidana): The life of Prince Siddhartha Gautama from conception through birth, youth, renunciation, ascetic practices, enlightenment under the Bodhi tree, first teaching, and establishment of the monastic community (Sangha).
This comprehensive biographical framework situates the individual Jatakas within the vast temporal scale of the Bodhisattva’s progress toward Buddhahood, establishing the cosmological and soteriological context for understanding the tales as demonstrations of virtue-cultivation across innumerable lifetimes.
Following the Nidana-katha, the volume presents translations of selected individual Jatakas, allowing readers to experience the narrative variety and ethical teachings of the collection.
Ethical and Philosophical Dimensions
The Jatakas function as narrative vehicles for Buddhist ethical instruction, making abstract principles concrete through memorable stories. Central themes include:
Dana (Generosity): Numerous stories depict the Bodhisattva sacrificing possessions, body parts, even his life for others’ benefit—the Vessantara Jataka (No. 547, the final and longest tale) recounts a prince who gives away everything, including his children, to demonstrate perfect generosity.
Sila (Moral Conduct): Tales illustrating the five lay precepts (abstaining from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, and intoxicants) and monastic discipline, showing positive consequences of ethical behavior and negative results of transgressions.
Khanti (Patience): Stories of enduring hardship, forgiving injuries, and maintaining equanimity under provocation, such as the Khantivada Jataka where the Bodhisattva as an ascetic teacher calmly endures mutilation by a cruel king.
Viriya (Effort): Narratives emphasizing perseverance, diligence, and sustained practice toward worthy goals despite obstacles.
Pañña (Wisdom): Tales demonstrating insight, skillful judgment, and penetration of reality’s true nature, often through the Bodhisattva’s clever solutions to seemingly impossible problems.
Karuna (Compassion): Stories of selfless concern for others’ suffering, extending even to enemies and those who have caused harm.
The animal fables particularly emphasize that ethical conduct transcends species boundaries—wisdom, compassion, and virtue can manifest in any form of life, while foolishness and vice afflict humans as readily as animals. This universality reinforces Buddhist teachings about the continuity of consciousness across rebirths in various realms and forms.
Influence and Legacy
The 1880 “Buddhist Birth Stories” profoundly influenced multiple fields:
Buddhist Studies: Established Jatakas as legitimate subjects for scholarly analysis, inspiring translations into European languages, comparative studies with other Buddhist traditions, and investigation of the tales’ historical development.
Folklore and Comparative Mythology: Demonstrated parallels between Indian, Middle Eastern, and European folktale traditions, contributing to debates about cultural diffusion versus polygenesis (independent origin) of similar stories across cultures. Scholars compared Jataka animal fables with Aesop’s fables, Jataka frame-narrative structure with the Arabian Nights, and specific tale motifs with worldwide folklore patterns.
Literary Studies: Revealed the sophistication of Asian narrative traditions, challenging Eurocentric assumptions about literary development and inspiring appreciation for non-Western literary achievements.
Popular Culture: Inspired adaptations and retellings for general audiences, including Ellen C. Babbitt’s children’s versions (1912, 1922) and numerous illustrated editions, ensuring the tales’ continued circulation beyond specialist scholarship.
The Pali Text Society, founded by Rhys Davids shortly after this volume’s publication, continued the work of making Buddhist texts accessible, eventually publishing the entire Pali canon and major commentaries. Fausbøll’s critical edition enabled all subsequent Jataka scholarship, while the translation model Rhys Davids established—combining accurate rendering with extensive scholarly apparatus—set standards for Buddhist text translation that persist today.
Digital Access
The 1880 volume has entered the public domain and is freely available through multiple digital repositories. Project Gutenberg provides the complete text in modern electronic formats, while the Internet Archive preserves scanned copies of the original London edition with its Victorian typography, scholarly footnotes, and historical bibliographic features. These digital versions ensure continued global access to this foundational work in Buddhist studies, comparative folklore, and Asian literary scholarship.
Note: This description was generated with assistance from Claude (Anthropic), Anthropic’s AI assistant, as part of the Dhwani digital library project.