Jataka Tales : Stories of the Buddha's Many Births

The Jataka Tales are an ancient collection of stories, narrating the past lives of the Buddha Siddharta Gautama.

The stories exist in different forms across the Buddhist world. In this edition, Misha Glenny and his guests explore the Pali collection of around 550 Jataka Tales.

On the night of his Enlightenment, before he became the Buddha, Siddharta Gautama is believed to have gained the ability to recall each of his past lives. In the Jataka collection, he uses the stories of these past lives to relay his teachings. Each rebirth saw him take a different form, he could be an animal like a monkey or a fish, he could be a Prince or even a God.

Jatakas have existed for thousands of years, and they are a cornerstone of Buddhist literature, art and religious teachings. The stories contain a multitude of recurring characters in the community around the Buddha, and their influence exists beyond Buddhism into other cultures around the world.

With

Naomi Appleton
Professor of Buddhist Studies and Indian Religions at the University of Edinburgh

Mahinda Deegalle
Bye-Fellow at St Edmund’s College, University of Cambridge

and

Alexandra Green,
SP Shaw Curator for Southeast Asia at the British Museum.

Producer: Sam Peach

In Our Time is a BBC Studios Production

A world-class seminar every week. Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time celebrates the pursuit of knowledge and the enduring power of ideas. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

READING LIST

Appleton, Naomi and Shaw, Sarah. The Ten Great Birth Stories of the Buddha: The Mahānipata of the Jātakatthavaṇṇanā, vol. 1 (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 2015).

Appleton, Naomi , Jataka Stories in Theravada Buddhism: Narrating the Bodhisatta Path, (Routledge. 2010).

Cate, Sandra. Making Merit, Making Art: A Thai Temple in Wimbledon (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003).

Green, Alexandra. Buddhist visual cultures, rhetoric and narrative in late Burmese wall paintings (Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong Press, 2018).

Holt, John C. The Religious World of Kīrti Śrī: Buddhism, Art, and Politics in Late Medieval Sri Lanka (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).

Horner, I. B. and Jaini, Padmanabh S. Apocryphal Birth-Stories, vol. 1 (London: Pali Text Society, 1985).

Jaini, Padmanabh S., ed. Paññāsajātaka, 2 vols. (London: Pali Text Society, 1981-83).

Lefferts, Leedom, and Cate, Sandra. “Constructing Multiple Narratives in Theravada Buddhism: The Vessantara Painted Scrolls of Northeast Thailand and Lowland Laos,” in Alexandra Green, ed., Rethinking Visual Narratives from Asia: Intercultural and Comparative Perspectives (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2013), 229-43.

Leksukhum, Santi. Temples of Gold: Seven Centuries of Thai Buddhist Paintings (London: Thames and Hudson, 2001).

Roveda, Vittorio, and Sothon Yem. Buddhist Painting in Cambodia (Bangkok: River Books, 2009).

Schober, Juliane, ed. Sacred Biography in the Buddhist Traditions of South and Southeast Asia (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1997).

Shaw, Sarah The Jatakas: Birth Stories of the Bodhisatta (Penguin 2006)