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Pali
- Buddhist
Jataka
stories have always been recognised in Buddhist literature and
occurred in the canonical Pitakas as well as frescoes
at Ajanta and railings at Sanchi. Buddhists monks used
them in their religious discourses. The Pali work Jataka contains
550 Jataka-stories in 22 nipatas or books. 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 narrate this particular Jataka-story or
birth-story, and so reveals some event in the long series of his previous
existences as a bodhisattva (One Destined to be a Buddha).
There is always a short summary at the end where the Buddha identifies
the different actors in the story in their present births at the time
of his discourse. Every story bears one or more gathas
or verses uttered by the Buddha while still a bodhisattva
and so with a part in the narrative, Only sometimes are they put into
his mouth as the Buddha. Although much of their matter related
to Buddhism, the Jataka stories are also folklore.
They are full of interesting information about early Buddhist times.
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