The Jataka or Stories of the Buddha's Former Births (6 Volumes Bound in Three)

In India recollection of Previous Lives is a common feature in the histories of the saints and heroes of sacred tradition. The doctrine of transmigration, since the later Vedic period, has played such an important part in the history of the national character and religious ideas that even Buddhist literature has included the ages of the past as an authentic background to the founder's historical life as gautama. Jataka stories or birth-legends were widely known in the third century B.C. The pali work, entitled "The Jataka" contains 537 Birth stories of the Buddha's former births. Each story, narrated by the Buddha, opens with a preface relating the particular circumstance s in the Buddha's life, revealing some events in the long series of his precious existences as a bodhisattva. At the end the Buddha identifies the different actors in the story in their present births. These stories magnify the glory of the Buddha and illustrate Buddhist doctrines and precepts by appropriate examples. The foremost interest of these legends lies in their relation to folklore giving a vivid picture of the social life and customs of ancient India.

About the Book:

In India recollection of previous lives is a common feature in the histories of the saints and heroes of sacred tradition. The doctrine of transmigration, since the later Vedic period, has played such an important part in the history of the national character and religious ideas that even Buddhist literature has included the ages of the past as an authentic background to the founder's historical life as Gautama. Jataka stories or birth legends were widely known in the third century B.C. The Pali work, entitled "The Jataka" contains 537 Birth-stories of the Buddha's former births. Each story, narrated by the Buddha, opens with a preface relating the particular circumstances in the Buddha's life, revealing some events in the long series of his previous existences as a bodhisattva. At the end the Buddha identifies the different actors in the story in their present births. These stories magnify the glory of the Buddha and illustrate Buddhist doctrines and precepts by appropriate examples. The foremost interest of these legends lies in their relation to folklore giving a vivid picture of the social life and customs of ancient India.

The famous translations of the Jataka Stories from Pali edited by Prof.E.B. Cowell are now once again being made available to the general public in three volumes.

IT was an almost isolated incident in Greek literary history I, when Pythagoras claimed to remember his previous lives •. Consequently he remembered the Trojan war, where, as Euphorbus, he was wounded by Menelaus, and, as Pythagoras, he could still recognise the shield which Menelaus had hung up in the temple of Apollo at Branchidae ; and similarly he remembered his subsequent birth as Hermotimus, and then as Pyrrhus, a fisherman of Delos. But in India this recollection of previous lives is a common feature in the histories of the saints and heroes of sacred tradition; and it is especially mentioned by Manu' as the effect of a self-denying and pious life. The doctrine of Metempsychosis, since the later Vedic period, has played such an important part in the history of the national character and religious ideas that we need not be surprised to find that Buddhist literature from the earliest times (although giving a theory of its own to explain the transmigration) has always included the ages of the past as an authentic background to the founder's historical life as Gautama. Jataka legends occur even in the Canonical Pitakas ; thus the Sukha-vihari Jataka and the 'I'ittira Jataka, which are respectively the lOth and the 37th in this volume, are found in the Culla Vagga, vii. 1 and vi. 6, and similarly the Khandhavatta Jataka, which will be given in the next volume, is found in the Culla Vagga v. 6; and there are several other examples. So too one of the minor books of the Sutta Pitaka (the Cariya Pitaka) consists of 35 Jatakas told in verse; and ten at least 1 But compare the account of Aristeas of Proconnesus in Hdt. iv. 14, 15. , Diogenes Laert. viii. 1. a iv. 148. of these can be identified in the volumes of our present collection already published; and probably several of the others will be traced when it is all printed. The Sutta and Vinaya Pi takas are generally accepted as at least older than the Council of Vesali (380 B.C. ?); and thus Jataka legends must have been always recognised in Buddhist literature.

This conclusion is confirmed by the fact that Jataka scenes are found sculptured in the carvings on the railings round the relic shrines of Sanchi and Amaravati and especially those of Bharhut-, where the titles of several Jatakas are clearly inscribed over some of the carvings. These bas-reliefs prove that the birth- legends were widely known in the third century B.C. and were then considered as part of the sacred history of the religion. Fah-hian, when he visited Ceylon, (400 A.D.), saw at Abhayagiri "representa- tions of the 500 bodily forms which the Bodhisatta assumed during his successive births'," and he particularly mentions his births as Sou-ta-nou, a bright flash of light, the king of the elephants, and an antelope 3. These legends were also continually introduced into the religious discourses' which were delivered by the various teachers in the course of their wanderings, whether to magnify the glory of the Buddha or to illustrate Buddhist doctrines and precepts by appropriate examples, somewhat in the same way as mediaeval preachers in Europe used to enliven their sermons by introducing fables and popular tales to rouse the flagging attention of their hearers". It is quite uncertain when these various birth-stories were put together in a systematic form such as we find in our present Jataka collection. At first they were probably handed down orally, but their growing popularity would ensure that their kernel, at any rate, would ere long be committed to some more permanent form. In fact there is a singular parallel to this in the' Gesta Romanorum " which was compiled by an uncertain author in the 14th century and contains nearly 200 fables and stories told to illustrate various virtues and vices, many of them winding up with a religious application.

, One of these is given as the frontispiece to this volume, see No. 46. " Beal's transl. p. 157. • Hiouen-thsang twice refers to Jatakas, Julien, i. l37, 197. , See Prof. M. M. Kunt/e's paper, Journ. R. A. S. Ceylon, viii. 123. • In the curious description of the Buddhist grove in the Harsha-carita, viii., Bana mentions owls "which repeated the Bodhisattva's Jiitakas, having gained illumination by continually hearing them recited." Some of the birth-stories are evidently Buddhistic and entirely depend for their point on some custom or idea peculiar to Buddhism; but many are pieces of folk-lore which have floated about the world for ages as the stray waifs of literature and are liable everywhere to be appropriated by any casual claimant. The same stories may thus, in the course of their long wanderings, come to be recognised under widely different aspects, as when they are used by Boccaccio or Poggio merely as merry tales, or by some Welsh bard to embellish king Arthur's legendary glories, or by some Buddhist samana or mediaeval friar to. add point to his discourse. Chaucer unwittingly puts a Jataka story into the mouth of his Pardonere when he tells his tale of ‘ the ryotoures three'; and another appears in Herodotus as the popular explanation of the sudden rise of the Alcmaeonidae through Megacles' marriage with Cleisthenes' daughter and the rejection of his rival Hippocleides.

The Pali work, entitled' the Jataka '; the first volume of which is now presented to the reader in an English form, contains 550 .Tatakas or Birth-stories, which are arranged in 22 nipatas or books. This division roughly founded on the number of verses (gathas) which are quoted in each story; thus the first book contains 150 stories, each of which only quotes one verse, the second 100, each of which quotes two, the third and fourth 50 each, which respectively quote 3 and 4, and so on to the twenty-first with 5 stories, each of which quotes 80 verses, and the twenty-second with 10 stories, each quoting a still larger number. Each story opens with a preface called the paccuppannavatthu or ' story of the present', which relates the particular circumstances in the Buddha's life which led him to tell the birth-story and thus reveal some event in the lung series of his previous existences as a bodhisatta or a being destined to attain Buddha-ship. At the end there is always given a short summary, where the Buddha identifies the different actors in the story in their present births at the time of his discourse,-it being an essential condition of the book that the Buddha possesses the same power as that which Pythagoras claimed but with a far more extensive range, since he could remember all the past events in every being's previous existences as well as in his own. Every story is also illustrated by one or more gathas which are uttered by the Buddha while still a Bodhisatta and so playing his part in the narrative; but sometimes the verses are put into his mouth as the Buddha, when they are called abhisambuddha-gatha.

Some of these stanzas are found in the canonical book called the Dhammapada ; and many of the Jataka stories are given in the old Commentary on that -book but with varying details, and sometimes associated with verses which are not given in our present Jataka text. This might seem to imply that there is not necessarily a strict connexion between any particular story and the verses which may be quoted as its moral; but in most cases an apposite stanza would of course soon assert a prescriptive right to any narrative which it seemed specially to illustrate. The language of the gathas is much more archaic than that of the stories; and it certainly seems more probable to suppose that they are the older kernel of the work, and that thus in its original form the Jataka, like the Cariya-pitaka, consisted only of these verses. It is quite true that they are generally unintelligible without the story, but such is continually the case with proverbial sayings; the traditional commentary passes by word of mouth in a varying form along with the adage, as in the well-known our own' Hobson's choice', until some author writes it down in a crystallised form'. Occasionally the same birth-story is repeated elsewhere in a somewhat varied form and with different verses attached to it; and we sometimes find the phrase iti vittharetabbam, which seems to imply that the narrator is to amplify the details at his discretion.

The native tradition in Ceylon is that the original Jataka Book consisted of the gathas alone, and that a commentary on these, containing the stories which they were intended to illustrate, was written in very early times in Singhalese. This was translated into Pali about 430 A.D. by Buddhaghosa, who translated so many of the early Singhalese commentaries into Pali ; and after this the Singhalese original was lost. The accuracy of this tradition has been discussed by Professor Rhys Davids in the Introduction to the first volume of his 'Buddhist Birth Stories' 3; and we may safely adopt his conclusion, that if the prose commentary was not composed by Buddhaghosa, it was composed not long after- wards; and as in any case it was merely a redaction of materials 1 We have an interesting illustration of the proverbial character of some of the Jataka stories in the Sankhya Aphorisms, iv. 11, “ he who is without hope is happy like Pingala," which finds its explanation in Jat. 330. It is also referred to in the Mababh. xii, 6520. • As e.g. Fausboll, iii. p. 495. Cf. Divyavad. p. 377, l. 3 See also several papers in the eighth volume of the Journal of the Ceylon Branch. of the r. A. Society. handed down from very early times in the Buddhist community, it is not a question of much importance except for Pali literary history. The gathas are undoubtedly old, and they necessarily imply the previous existence of the stories, though not perhaps in the exact words in which we now possess them.

The Jatakas are preceded in the Pali text by a long Introduction, the Nidana-katha, which gives the Buddha's previous history both before his last birth, and also during his last existence until he attained the state of a Buddha '. This has been translated by Professor Rhys Davids, but as it has no direct connexion with the rest of the work, we have omitted it in our translation, which commences with the first Birth-story.

We have translated the quasi-historical introductions which always precede the different birth-stories, as they are an essential part of the plan of the original work.since they link each tale with some special incident in the Buddha's life, which tradition venerates as the occasion when he is supposed to have recalled the forgotten scene of a long past existence to his contemporaries. But it is an interesting question for future investigation how far they contain any historical data. They appear at first sight to harmonise with the framework of the Pitakas ; but I confess that I have no confidence in their historical credibility,-they seem to me rather the laboured invention of a later age, like the legendary history of the early centuries of ancient Rome. But this question will be more easily settled, when we have made further progress in the translation.

The Jatakas themselves are of course interesting as specimens of Buddhist literature; but their foremost interest to us consists in their relation to folk-lore and the light which they often throw on those popular stories which illustrate so vividly the ideas and superstitions of the early times of civilisation. in this respect they possess a special value, as, although much of their matter is peculiar to Buddhism, they contain embedded with it an unrivalled collection of Folk-lore. They are also full of interest as giving a vivid picture of the social life and customs of ancient India. Such books as Lieutenant-Colonel Sleeman's 'Rambles' or Mr Grierson's 'Bihar Peasant Life' illustrate them at every turn, They form in fact an ever-shifting panorama of the village life such as Fah-hian and Hiouen-thsang saw it in the old days before the Muhammadan 1 This la.tter portion partly corresponds to the well-known Lalita-vistara of the Northern Buddhists. conquest, when Hindu institutions and native rille prevailed in every province throughout the land. Like all collections of early popular tales they are full of violence and craft, and betray a low opinion of woman; but outbursts of nobler feeling are not wanting, to relieve the darker colours.

Professor Rhys Davids first commenced a translation of the Jataka in 1880, but other engagements obliged him to discontinue it after one volume had appeared, containing the Nidanakatha and 40 stories. The present translation has been undertaken by a band of friends who hope, by each being responsible for a definite portion, to complete the whole within a reasonable time. We are in fact a guild of Jataka translators, creshthi-purva vayam crenih; but, although we have adopted some common principles of translation and aim at a certain general uniformity in our technical terms and in transliteration, we have agreed to leave each individual translator, within certain limits, a free hand in his own work., The Editor only exercises a general superintendence, in consultation with the two resident translators, Mr Francis and Mr Neil.

Mr R. Chalmers of Oriel College, Oxford, has translated in the present volume the first volume of Prof. Fausboll's edition of the Pali text (five volumes of which have already appeared). The second volume will be translated by Mr W. H. D. Rouse, late fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge, who will also be responsible for the fourth; the third will be translated by Mr H. T. Francis, Under- Librarian of the University Library at Cambridge, and late fellow of Gonville and Caius College, and Mr R. A. Neil, fellow and assistant- tutor of Pembroke College, who hope also to undertake the fifth ',

PREFACE

1. APANNAKA-JATAKA
   (Two merchants travel with caravans across a desert. One, beguiled by goblins, throws away his drinking-water in the desert and is devoured with all his people and cattle; the other completed his journey safety.)
2. VANNUPATHA-JATAKA
   (Travelling across a desert, a caravan through mistake thrown away its water, &c. In their despair the leader has a well dug, till far down water is found, and perseverance saves the caravan from death.)
3. SERIVANIJA-JATAKA
   (Two hawkers are successively offered by its unwitting owners a golden bowl. The greedy hawker over-reaches himself, whilst the honest one is richly-rewarded.)
4. CULLAKA-SETTHI-JATAKA
   (A Young man picks up a dead mouse which he sells, and works up this capital till he becomes rich.)
5. TANDALUNALI-JATAKA
   (An incompetent valuer declares 500 horses worth a measure of rice, which measure of rice in turn he is led to declare worth all Benares.)
6. DEVADHAMMA-JATAKA
   (Two princes going down to a haunted pool are seized by an ogre; the third, by correctly defining 'godlike' saves his brothers.)
7. KATTHAHARI-JATAKA
   (A king refuses to recognize his son by a chance amour; the mother throws the child into the air, praying that, if he be not the king's son, he may be killed by his fall. The child rests in mid-air, and the king recognizes him as his son.)
8. GAMANI-JATAKA
   
9. MAKHADEVA-JATAKA
   (A king, finding a grey hair in his head, renounces his throne to prepare as a hermit for death.)
10. SUKHAVIHARI-JATAKA
    (A king who becomes a Brother proclaims the happiness he has found.)
11. LAKKHANA-JATAKA
    

12. NIRGRODHAMIGA-JATAKA
    (Deer in a royal park, to avoid being hunted, decide that lots shall be cast to select a daily victim. The lot having fallen on a doe big with young, the king of the deer offers himself as a substitute at the block and saves not only his own life but also the lives of all living creatures.)
13. KANDINA-JATAKA
    (A mountain-stag, enamoured of a doe, is by her allowed to fall a prey to a hunter; the doe escapes.)
14. VATAMIGA-JATAKA
    (By a bait of honeyed grass a wild antelope is lured by slow degrees into a place.)
15. KHARADIYA-JATAKA
    (A deer which would not come to be taught the ruses of deer, is caught in a trap.)
16. TIPALLATTHMIGA-JATAKA
    (A deer which had learnt the ruses of deer, being caught in a snare, effects its escape.)
17. MALUTA-JATAKA
    (A tiger and a lion dispute whether it is the dark or the light half of the month which is cold.)
18. MATAKABHATTA-JATAKA
    (A goat, which was to be sacrificed by a Brahmin, shows signs of great joy and of great sorrow. It explains the reason for each emotion.)
19. AYACITABHATTA-JATAKA
    (Offering sacrifice to get release from a vow, is not true 'Release.')
20. NALAPANA-JATAKA
    (Thirsty monkeys came to a pool haunted by an ogre. Their leader miraculously blows the knots out of canes and with these the monkeys safely slake their thirst.)
21. KURUNGA-JATAKA
    (A hunter up a tree throws down fruits to lure a deer within aim. The deer detects the artifice and escapes.)
22. KUKKURA-JATAKA
    (Carriage-straps having been gnawed by palace dogs, a king orders all other dogs to be killed. The leader of a peck of dogs reveals the truth by causing an emetic to be applied to the royal dogs of the palace.)
23. BHOJAJANIYA-JATAKA
    (A changer falls wounded when his rider has captured six out of seven kings. Seeing that a hack is being saddled in his place, the charger asks to be saddled again, makes a last effort and dies in the hour of victory.)
24. AJANNA-JATAKA
    (A story similar to the above about two chariot horses, one of whom is wounded and is about to be replaced by a sorry beast.)
25. TITTHA-JATAKA
    (A royal refuses to take his bath because a hack had bathed at the spot.)
26. MAHILAMUKHA-JATAKA.
    (An elephent listening to robbers' talk, kills his mahout; by listening to virtuous converse he becomes good again.)
27. ABHINHA-JATAKA
    (An elephant, missing his playmate, the dog, refuses to eat until the dog is restored to him.)
28. NANDIVISALA-JATAKA
    (How by incivil words to his bull a Brahmin lost a bet, which by civility to the animal he afterwards won.)
29. KANHA-JATAKA
    (How a bull drew 500 carts in order to earn money for his poor mistress.)
30. MUNIKA-JATAKA
    (A hard-worked ox is discontented with his own hard fare, when he sees a lazy pig being fattened to be eaten; and the discontented ox accepts his position.)
31. KULAVAKA-JATAKA
    (Through the practice of goodness tending to the diminution of crime in his village, a man is falsely accused by the headman and sentenced to be trampled to death by elephants. The elephants refuse to harm him. Being released, he builds a caravansary, in which good work (against his wish) three out of four of his wives take part. At death he is reborn as Sakka. His three good wives are reborn in heaven. He seeks out the fourth and exhorts her to goodness. As a crane she refuses to eat a fish which shewed signs of life; reborn a woman, she is eventually born a Titan and espoused by Sakka.)
32. NACCA-JATAKA
    (The animals choose kings. The daughter of the king of the birds (the Golden Mallard) chooses the peacock for her husband. In dancing for joy the peacock exposes himself and is rejected.)
33. SAMMODAMANA-JATAKA
    (Quails caught in a net, rise up in a body with the net and escape several times. After a time they quarrel and are caught.)
34. MACCHA-JATAKA
    (An uxorious fish being caught, fears his wife may misconstrue his absence. A Brahmin sets him free.)
35. VATTAKA-JATAKA
    (A baby-quail is about to be engulfed in a jungle-fire, when by an 'Act of Truth' he quenches the flames round him.)
36. SAKUNA-JATAKA
    (A tree in which birds dwell is grinding its boughs together and beginning to smoke. The wise birds fly away; the foolish ones are burnt.)
37. TITTIRA-JATAKA
    (A partridge, a monkey and an elephant living together, decide to obey the senior. To Prove seniority each gives his earliest recollection.)
38. BAKA-JATAKA
    (A crane by pretending that he was taking them to a big lake, devours all the fish of a pond. A wise crab nips the bird's head off.)
39. NANDA-JATAKA
    (How a slave was made to tell where his master's father had buried his hoard.)
40. KHADIRANGARA-JATAKA
    (In order to stop a Treasurer from giving aims to a Pacceka Buddha, Mara interposes a yawing gulf of fire. Undaunted, the Treasurer steps forward, to be borne up by a lotus from which he tenders his aims to Mara's discomfiture.)
41. LOSAKA-JATAKA
    (How a Brother through jealous greed was condemned to rebirths entailing misery and hunger. Finally, when reborn a man, he is deserted by his parents and brings suffering on those around him. On board ship, he has to be cast overboard; on a raft he comes to successive island palaces of goddesses, and eventually to an ogre-island where he seizes the leg of an ogress in form of a goat. She kicks him over the sea to Benares, and he falls among the king's goats. Hoping to get back to the goddesses, he seizes a goat by the leg, only to be seized as a thief and to be condemned to death.)
42. KAPOTA-JATAKA
    (A pigeon lives in a kitchen. A greedy crow makes friends with him, and, being also housed in the kitchen, plans an attack on the victuals. The crow is tortured to death, and the pigeon flies away.)
43. VELUKA-JATAKA
    (A man rears a viper, which in the end kills its benefactor.)
44. MAKASA-JATAKA
    (A mosquito settles on a man's head. To kill it, his foolish son strikes the man's head with an axe with fatal effect.)
45. ROHINI-JATAKA
    (Like the last; a pestle takes the place of the axe.)
46. ARAMADUSAKA-JATAKA
    (Monkeys employed to water a pleasaunce pull up the trees in order to judge by the size of the roots how much water to give. The trees die.)
47. VARUNA-JATAKA
    (Seeing customers whet their thirst with salt, a young potman mixes salt in the spirits for sale.)
48. VEDABBHA-JATAKA
    (Captured by robbers, a Brahmin makes treasure rain from the sky; a second band kills him because he cannot repeat the miracle. Mutual slaughter leaves only two robbers with the treasure. One poisons the other's food and is himself slain by his fellow.)
49. NAKKHATTA-JATAKA
    (A chaplain thwarts a marriage on the ground that the day fixed is unlucky. The bride is given to another.)
50. DUMMEDHA-JUTAKA
    (To put a stop to sacrifices of living creatures, a king vows to offer a holocaust of such as take life, &c. Sacrifices cease.)
51. MAHASILAVA-JATAKA
    (A good king meets evil with good. Refusing to sanction war, he is captured and buried alive in a charnel-grove. How he escapes the jackals, acts as umpire for ogres, and regains his sovereignty.)
52. CULAJANAKA-JATAKA
53. PUNNAPATI-JATAKA
    (Rascals drug spirits for purposes of robbery. Their intended victim discovers the plot became they do not drink the liquor themselves.)
54. PHALA JATAKA
    (How in defiance of warnings greedy fellows ate a poisonous fruit. How their leader knew it must be poisonous though it looked exactly like al mango.)
55. PANCAVUDHA-JATAKA
    (How Prince Five-weapons fought the ogre Hairy-grip, and, though defeated, subdued the ogre by fearlessness.)
56. KANCANAKKHANDHA-JATAKA
    (A farmer finds a heavy nuggest of gold. By cutting it up into four pieces, he is able to carry it away.)
57. VANARINDA-JATAKA
    (How the crocodile lay on a rock to catch the monkey, and how the latter outwitted the crocodile.)
58. TAYODHAMMA-JATAKA
    (A monkey gelds all his male offspring. One escapes; the father, seeking to kill him, sends his son to an ogre-haunted pool. By cleverness the son escapes death.)
59. BHERIVADA-JATAKA
    (A drummer by too much drumming is plundered by robbers in a forest.)
60. SAMKHADHAMANA-JATAKA
    (A similar story about a conch blower.)
61. ASATAMANTA-JATAKA
    (The wickedness of women shewn by the endeavour of a hag to kill her good son in order to facilitate an intrigue with a youth.)
62. ANDABHUTA-JATAKA
    (Another story of the innate wickedness of women. A girl is bred up from infancy among women only, without ever seeing any man but her husband. The story of her intrigue with a lover and of her deceits toward her husband.)
63. TAKKA-JATAKA
    (A wicked princess seduces a hermit who devotes himself to her. Being carried off by a robber chief, she lures the hermit to her new home in order that he may be killed. His goodness saves him and her ingratitude destroys her.)
64. DURAJANA-JATAKA
    (Wives a bar to the higher life.)
65. ANABHIRATI-JATAKA
    (Women common to all.)
66. MUDULAKKHANA-JATAKA
    (How a hermit fell in love and was cured.)
67. UCCHANGA-JATAKA
    (A woman's husband, son and brother are condemned to death. Being offered a choice which she will save, she chooses her brother and gives the reason.)
68. SAKETA-JATAKA
    (Why a Brahmin and his wife claimed the Buddha as their son.)
69. VISAVANTA-JATAKA
    (A viper bites a man and refuses under threat of death to such out the poison.)
70. KUDDALA-JATAKA.
    (Private property a bar to the higher life. Conquest over self the highest conquest. Sakka builds a monastery for a sage and a converted people.)
71. VARNA-JATAKA
    (How a lazy fellow, who picked green boughts for firewood, hurt himself and inconvenienced others.)
72. SILAVANAGA-JITAKA
    (The story of the good elephant and the ungrateful man.)
73. SACCAMKIRA-JATAKA
    (The ingratitude of a prince, and the gratitude of a snake, a rat and a parrot.)
74. RUKKHADHAMMA-JATAKA
    (Union is strength, among trees as among men.)
75. MACCHA-JATAKA
    (How the good fish ended a drought and saved his kinsfolk.)
76. ASMKIYA-JATAKA
    (A caravan is saved by a wakeful hermit from being looted.)
77. MAHASUPINA-JATAKA
    (Sixteen wonderful dreams and their interpretations.)
78. ILLISA-JATAKA
    (How a miser was cured by his father reappearing on earth and distributing the son's wealth in the exact semblance of the son.)
79. KHARASSARA-JATAKA
    (A village headman privily incites robbers to carry off the taxes collected for the king.)
80. BHIMASENA-JATAK
    (A valiant dwarf and a cowardly giant. The dwarf does the work, and the giant gets the credit. The giant's growing pride is brought low in the face of danger; the dwarf is honoured.)
81. SURAPANA-JATAKA
    (The effects of strong drink on hermits.)
82. MITTAVINDA-JATAKA
83. KALAKANNI-JATAKA
    (Not the name but the heart within makes the man.)
84. ATTHASSADVARA-JATAKA
    (The paths to spiritual welfare.)
85. KIMPAKKA-JATAKA
86. SILVIMAMSANA-JATAKA
    (The Brahmin who stole in order to see whether he was esteemed for goodness or otherwise. The good cobra.)
87. MAMGALA-JATAKA
    (The folly of superstitious belief in omens and the like.)
88. SARAMBHA-JATAKA
89. KUHAKA-JATAKA
    (The hypocritical hermit who stole the gold, but punctiliously returned a straw which was not his.)
90. AKATANNU-JATAKA
    (A merchant is befriended by a merchant in another country, but refuses to return the service. The revenge taken by the good merchant's servants.)
91. LITTA-JATAKA
    (A sharper swallows dice which had been poisoned in order to teach him a lesson.)
92. MAHASARA-JATAKA
    (A queen's jewels are stolen by monkeys. Certain innocent persons confess to the theft. How the monkeys are proved to be the real culprits, and how the jewels are recovered.)
93. VISSASABHOJANA-JATAKA
    (A lion's fatal passion for a doe.)
94. LOMAHAMSA-JATAKA
    (The futility of ascetic self-mortification.)
95. MAHASUDASSANA-JATAKA
    (How king Sudassana died.)
96. TELEPATTA-JATAKA
    (A prince wins a kingdom by resisting the fascinations of lovely ogresses. A king who yields, is eaten, with all his household.)
97. NAMASIDDHI-JATAKA
    (Discontented with his name, a youth travels till he learns that the name does not make the man.)
98. KUTAVANIJA-JATAKA
    (A rogue is hidden in a hollow tree, to feign to be the Tree-sprite who is to act as umpire in a dispute. A fire lighted at the bottom of the tree exposes the chest.)
99. PAROSAHASSA-JATAKA
    (A Brahmin dies and states his spiritual attainments in a formula which only one of his pupils understands.)
100. ASTARUPA-JATAKA
     (A beleaguered city is captured by cutting off supplies of water and firewood.)
101. PAROSATA-JATAKA
102. PANNIKA-JATAKA
     (No test his daughter's virtue, a man makes love to her.)
103. VERI-JATAKA
     (A merchant rejoices that he has outstripped robbers and reached his home in safety.)
104. MITTAVINDA-JATAKA
105. DUBBALAKATTHA-JATAKA
     (An elephant having escaped from the trainer's goad, lives in constant dread.)
106. UDANCANI-JATAKA
     (A young hermit, seduced by a girl, is disenchanted by the number of errands she makes him run.)
107. SALITTAKA-JATAKA
     (A skilful marksman reduces a talkative Brahmin to silence by flicking pellets of goat's dung down the latter's throat.)
108. BAHIYA-JATAKA
     (Occasional decency a passport to greatness.)
109. KUNDAKAPUVA-JATAKA
     (A Tree-sprite, whose worshipper feared his gift was too mean, asks for the gift and rewards the poor man by revealing the site of a buried hoard of money.)
110. SABBASAMHARAKA-PANHA
111. GADRABHA-PANHA
112. AMARADEVI-PANHA
113. SINGALA-JATAKA
     (Being belated in a city, a jackal, by a lying promise to reveal buried treasure, induces a Brahmin to carry him safety out of the city. The greedy Brahmin reaps only indignities from the ungrateful beast.)
114. MITACINTI-JATAKA
     (Of three fishes, two through folly are caught in a net; the third and wiser fish rescues them.)
115. ANUSASIKA-JATAKA
     (A greedy bird, after cunningly warning other birds against the dangers of the high road on which she found food, is herself crushed to death by a carriage on that road.)
116. DUBBACA-JATAKA
     (Being in liquor, an acrobat undertakes to jump more javelins than he can manage, and is killed.)
117. TITTIRA-JATAKA.
     (A busybody is killed for his chatter by a jaundiced man; and the piping of a partridge attracts the hunter who kills it.)
118. VATTAKA-JATAKA
     (A quail, being caught by a fowler, starves itself till no one will buy it, and in the end escapes.)
119. AKALARAVI-JATAKA
     (A cock which crowed in and out of season has its neck wrung.)
120. BANDHANAMOKKHA-JATAKA
     (A queen, who had committed adultery with sixty-four footmen and failed in her overtures to the chaplain, accuses the latter rape. He reveals her guilt and his own innocence.)
121. KUSANALI-JATAKA
     (A grass-sprite and a tree-sprite are friends. The former saves the latter's tree from the axe by assuming the shape of a chameleon and making the tree look full of holes.)
122. DUMMEDHA-JATAKA
     (Being jealous of his elephant, a king seeks to make it fall over a precipice. The elephant flies through the air with its mahout to another and more appreciative master.)
123. NANGALISA-JATAKA
     (A stupid youth, being devoted to his teacher, props up the latter's bed with his own leg all night long. The grateful teacher yearns to instruct the dullard and tries to make him compare things together. The youth sees a likeness to the shaft of a plough in a snake, an elephant, sugar-cane and curds. The teacher abandons all hope.)
124. AMBA-JATAKA
     (In time of drought, a hermit provides water for the animals, who in gratitude bring him fruit enough for himself and 500 others.)
125. KATAHAKA-JATAKA
     (A slave, educated beyond his station, manages by forging his master's name to marry a rich wife in another city. He gives him self airs till his old master comes, who, while not betraying the slave, teaches the wife verses whereby to restrain her husband's arrogance.)
126. ASILAKKHANA-JATAKA
     (Effects of two sneezes. One lost a sword-tester his nose, whilst the other won a princess for her lover.)
127. KALANDUKA-JATAKA
     (A slave like the one in No.125 is rebuked for arrogance to his wife by a parrot who knew him at home. The slave is recaptured.)
128. BILARA-JATAKA
     (A jackal under guise of saintliness, eats rats belonging to a troop with which he consorts. His treachery is discovered and avenged.)
129. AGGIKA-JATAKA
     (A similar story about rats and a jackal whose hair had all been burnt off except a top-knot which suggested holiness.)
130. KOSIYA-JATAKA
     (The alternative of the stick or a draught of nauseous fifth cures a wife of feigned illness.)
131. ASAMPADANA-JATAKA
     (A benefactor is reputed by the man he had befriended. Hearing of this ingratitude, the king gives all the ingrate's wealth to the benefactor, who refuses to take more than his won.)
132. PANCAGARU-JATAKA
     (Like No.96. The King is thankful to have passed through great perils to great dominion.)
133. GHATASANA-JATAKA
     (Because the waters of his lake were befouled by birds roosting in an overhanging tree, a Naga darts flames among the boughs. The wise birds fly away; the foolish stay and are killed.)
134. JHANASODHANA-JATAKA
135. CANDABHA-JATAKA
136. SUVANNAHAMSA-JATAKA
     (The father of a family dies, leaving his family destitute. Being reborn a bird with golden plumage, and discovering the condition of his family, the father gives them a feather at a time to sell. The widow in her greed plucks all his feathers out, only to find that they are gold no more.)
137. BABBU-JATAKA
     (A mouse caught by successive cats buys them off by daily rations of meat. In the end, the mouse, ensconced in crystal, defies the cats, who dash themselves to pieces against the unseen crystal.)
138. GODHA-JATAKA
     (A hermit tries to vain to catch a lizard to eat.)
139. UBHATOBHATTHA-JATAKA
     (A fisherman, having hooked a snag, and thinking it a monster fish, wishes to keep it all to himself. How he lost his clothes and his eyes, and how his wife was beaten and fined)
140. KAKA-JATAKA
     (A wanton crow having befouled the king's chaplain, the later prescribes crows fat for the burns of the king's elephants. The leader of the crows explains to the king that crows have no fat and that revenge alone prompted the chaplain's prescription.)
141. GODHA-JATAKA
     (A chameleon betrays a tribe of iguanas to a hunter.)
142. SIGALA-JATAKA
     (In order to catch a jackal, a man pretends to be dead. To try him, the jackal tugs at the man's stick and finds his grip tighten.)
143. VIROCANA-JATAKA
     (A jackal, after attending a lion in the chase, imagines he can kill a quarry as well as the lion. In essaying to kill an elephant, the jackal is killed.)
144. NANGUTTHA-JATAKA
     (A Votary of the God of Fire, having a cow to sacrifice to his deity, finds that robbers have driven it off. If the god, he reflects cannot look after his own sacrifice, how shall be protect his votary?)
145. RADHA-JATAKA
     (A Brahmin asks two parrots to keep an eye on his wife during his absence. They observe her misconduct and report it to the Brahmin, without essaying the hopeless task of restraining her.)
146. KAKA-JATAKA
     (A hen crow having been drowned in the sea, other crows try to bale the sea out with their beaks.)
147. PUPPHARATTA-JATAKA
     (In order to have smart holiday attire, a wife makes her husband break into the royal conservatories. Being caught and impaled, he has only the one grief that his wife will not have her flowers to wear.)
148. SIGALA-JATAKA
     (A jackal eats his way into a dead elephant's carcass and cannot get out.)
149. EKAPANNA-JATAKA
     (By the analogy of a poisonous seedling, a wicked prince is reformed.)
150. SANJIVA-JATAKA
     (A youth, who has learnt the charm for restoring the dead to life, tries it on a tiger, with fatal effects to himself.)

151. RAJOVADA-JATAKA
     Two kings, both wise and good, meet in a narrow way, and a dispute arises who is to give place. Both are of the same age and power. Their drivers sing each his master's praises. One is good to the good, and bad to the bad; the other repays evil with good. The first acknowledges his superior, and gives place.
152. SINGALA-JATAKA
     The Bodhisatta is a young lion, one of seven brothers; a jackal propose love to his sister. Six of the brothers set out to kill the jackal, but seeing him as he lies in a crystal grotto, imagine him to be in the sky, leap up and kill themselves. The Bodhisatta roars, and the jackal dies of fear.
153. SUKARA-JATAKA
     A boar challenges a lion to fight; and then in fear wallows amid filth until he smells so foul that the lion will not come near him, but owns himself vanquished rather than fight with him.
154. URAGA-JATAKA
     A Garula chases a serpent, which taking the form of a jewel, fixes himself upon an ascetic's garment, and by this means wins safety.
155. GAGGA-JATAKA
     How a goblin had power over all people who did not wish each other well at a sneeze, and how he was foiled.
156. ALINA-CITTA-JATAKA
     An elephant runs a thorn into its foot; it is tended by some carpenters, and serves them out of gratitude. His young one takes his place afterwards, and is bought by the king for a large sum. How on the king's death, it routs a hostile host, and saves the kingdom for the king's infant son.
157. GUNA-JATAKA
     A jackal rescues a lion, who out of gratitude makes him a friend. The lioness is jealous of the she-jackal; then the whole matter is explained, and maxims given in praise of friendship.
158. SUHANU-JATAKA
     Two savage horses, that maltreat all other of their kind, strike up a sudden friendship with each other, than illustrating the proverb, 'Birds of a feather.'
159. MORA-JATAKA
     How a peacock kept itself safe by reciting spells; how its mind was disturbed by hearing the female's note, and it was caught; how the king desired to eat it, but the peacock discoursed such good divinity that he was stayed; and finally the bird was set free again to return to the mountains.
160. VINILAKA-JATAKA
     A bird, the offspring of a goose with a crow, is being carried by his father's two other sons to see him, but is arrogant and compares them to horses that serve him; so he is sent back again.
161. INDASAMANAGOTTA-JATAKA
     How a man kept a fat elephant, which turned against him and trampled him to death.
162. SANTHAVA-JATAKA
     How a man had his horse burnt by reason of the great offerings which he made to his sacred fire.
163. SUSIMA-JATAKA
     How a lad whose hereditary right it was to manage a festival, journeyed 2000 leagues in a day, learnt the ceremonial, and returned in time to conduct the ceremony.
164. GIJJHA-JATAKA
     About a merchant who succoured some vultures, and they in return stole cloths and other things and brought