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.
