The Tham Vessantara-jAtaka - Khamkoo

in the metrical pieces, and ultimately (4) a SamodhAna, a winding up of the story. The
last two belong properly to the Paccupanna-vatthu. The SamodhAna includes the
identification, attributed to the Buddha, of personages in the present with the characters
who appear in the story from the past.
As I have explained, JAtaka is a technical name in the Buddhist literatures for a
story or stories purporting to tell the previous births of Gotama the Buddha prior to his
final enlightenment. Such a story is sometimes known as a Bodhisattva (the future
Buddha) story. It is a story in which the Bodhisatta usually plays a major part in one of
his former existences. Sometimes he is the hero, sometimes a secondary character and
sometimes only a spectator.
The term JAtaka is also used to refer to 547 such stories included in the PALi
Canon. These stories, in the PALi version, exhibit lives in different forms. “They may be
simple tales or beast fables, stories of common life or narratives portraying the lives of
kings and countries, usually told in prose with the climax or essential part in verses”. 14
These verses are regarded as canonical and they are believed to be the words of the
Buddha. Though from the earliest time, the canonical book of JAtaka includes only the
verses or gAthAs, 15 there was probably an oral commentary which gives the stories in
prose from the earliest times.
Whether the verses or the prose came into existence first is still a matter of
controversy. 16 However, the general opinion of the scholars is that the canonical JAtaka
is a verse JAtaka. It has been handed down in different versions from those of the
14
15
16
Encyclopedia of Buddhism, Vol. VI, p. 3.
KhemapAlI, The Critical Edition of the VessantaradIpanI, Intro. p. 3.
Encyclopedia of Buddhism, Vol. VI, p. 8.
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