Excerpt from Buddhist Parables Translated From the Original Pali
This volume contains upwards of two hundred similes, allegories, parables, fables, and other illustrative stories and anecdotes, found in the Pali Buddhist texts, and said to have been employed, either by the Buddha himself or by his followers, for the purpose of conveying religious and ethical lessons and the lessons of common sense. Much of the material has never before been translated into English.
Chapters I-III contain parables drawn, with a single exception, from the Book of the Buddha"s Previous Existences, or Jataka Book. This remarkable work relates in mixed prose and verse the experiences of the Future Buddha, either as an animal or as a human being, in each of 550 states of existence previous to his rebirth as Gotama. The textus receptus of this work represents a recension made in Ceylon early in the fifth century A. D., but much of the material is demonstrably many centuries older. For example, the stanzas rank as Canonical Scripture, and many of the stories (including Parables 4 and 14 and 27) are illustrated by Bharahat sculptures of the middle of the third century B. C. Parable 6 is taken from the Book of Discipline or Vinaya, and was very possibly related by the Buddha himself.
With Parable 1, The grateful elephant, compare the story of Androclus and the lion, and Gesta Romanorum 104. With Parable 2, Grateful animals and ungrateful man, compare E. Chavannes, Cinq Cents Contes 25; A. Schiefner, Tibetan Tales 26; Gesta Romanorum 119; and the following stories in Grimm, Kinder- und Hausmarchen: 17 Die weisse Schlange, 60 Die zwei Bruder, 62 Die Bienenkonigin, 85 Die Goldkinder, 107 Die beiden Wanderer, 126 Ferenand getru un Ferenand ungetru, 191 Das Meerhaschen. For additional parallels, see J. Bolte und G. Polivka, Anmerkungen zu den Kinder- und Hausmarchen der Bruder Grimm, Marchen 17, 62, 191.
Parable 9, Vedabbha and the thieves, is the original of Chaucer"s Pardoner"s Tale.
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