Week 14: Jatakas Tales: Shedlock (Extra Reading Diary)

This week, for the essay option I decided to read the first half of Shedlock's verison of Jataka Tales. The stories I'm going to talk about in this post are The Hare that was Not Afraid to Die, The King who Saw the Truth, and The Elephant Honored with Old Age.

The Hare that was not afraid to die was the first story that really caught my eye. Most of the animals who actually could have helped the poor by some small hunting or foraging, instead stole the food that they then tried to give away. That seems like it is something that would happen if there was readily food available instead of working for it. I thought the Buddha-bunny was very brave to not only, offer himself up for a meal, but also protect the poor man by jumping on the flames himself so the Brahman didn't have to kill on a holy day.

Black Naped Hair. Wikimedia

The King Who Saw the Truth was a very similar story but I thought it was also very brave, especially since eyes are something that most people would be unwilling to give up. This story continued in the long line of stories where the Buddha was a good and righteous man who promised to do something that most people would never do and when tested, fulfilled his promise.

The last story I'm going to talk about was my favorite from the first half of this unit, The Elephant who was Honored with Old Age. There have been stories I read for the Myth-Folklore class and stories I read for this class that dealt with the issues of humans casting out animals once they become less useful. This was my favorite story that was in that same moral. Most of the times the animals are always cast out, sometimes they may find a way to live a happy life, but often they don't. I liked that in this one, the Buddha/Prime Minister fought for the elephant to be restored to her place of honor and not cast aside after all her long years of service to the king.