Jataka Tales

Jataka

Anonymous / tradition (canonical verses); prose framework compiled later in Sri Lanka · c. 300 BC - AD 400 · Magadha (India) · other

The Jataka collection gathers 547 birth-stories of the Buddha's previous lives as an animal, king, or ordinary being, each illustrating a perfected virtue, folding much older pre-Buddhist folk tales into a specifically Buddhist doctrinal frame. The canonical verses trace to Magadha, but the prose framework around them was compiled later in Sri Lanka.