From the Fifty Jātaka

Book excerpt: "For over two thousand years, jātaka--tales of the Buddha's previous lives--have been popular as teaching and entertainment. Apart from the classical jātaka from India, many other jātaka appeared in Southeast Asia and were assembled in collections known conventionally as the "Fifty Jātaka" (Paññāsa Jātaka). Once considered minor and apocryphal, they are now acclaimed as the lifeblood of the region's literature. This book offers the first published translations in English of twenty-one stories from the Thailand collection. The selections include some of the best-known Thai stories, such as Sudhana- Manoharā, the Golden Conch, and Rathasena (Twelve Sisters), among other adventurous quests, accounts of self-sacrifice, moral tales, strings of riddles, and story cycles. Here the tales are translated fully and faithfully in readable English prose with full annotation, an introduction on the background of the stories, and summaries of all sixty-one jātaka in the Thailand collection"--back cover.