Jataka Tales

The stories of the Buddha's former lives, moral fables in which every tale ends with the Buddha naming himself.

Core Characteristics

More than 500 poems with prose commentaries, collected in the Pali Canon's Khuddaka Nikaya.
In each tale the Bodhisatta — the future Buddha — appears as king, animal, merchant or ascetic, perfecting a virtue.
Their animal fables fed story collections across Asia and, via the West, the European fable tradition.