An ancient Buddhist tale addresses the timeless issue of fancying material things at the expense of others

Retold by Josepha Sherman

Sometime in the fifth century, A.D., Buddhist monks in Ceylon committed the then still largely oral canon and related stories of Theravada Buddhism to writing. These texts were written in Pali, a language related to Sanskrit and based on an ancient vernacular, probably spoken in the western part of India. This sacred language of Buddhism is still in use in the religious literature of Thailand and Burma.

This Buddhist Canon, the Tripitaka (Three Baskets), has as its last section the Supplementary Doctrines, of which the Jataka, also named the Birth Stories (relating to the previous births of the Buddha) is part. The great doctor Buddhaghosa is commonly believed to have compiled a very important set of commentaries on may Buddhist scriptures in the fifth century A.D., including most of the Jataka. It is from this source that the Birth Stories are best known today. They teach the four cardinal virtues of Buddhism–friendliness, compassion, joy, and equanimity-through folktales set in the past, in which communications between humans and animals or plants are possible. In an entertaining way, these stories encourage the warm virtues of family love, brotherhood, and honesty in one's dealing with others.

Jataka in Sanskrit and Pali means birth. This collection of very popular stories of the former lives of the Buddha are preserved in all branches of Buddhism. Some of these tales are scattered throughout the Pali canon, but most of them are found in the Jatakatthavannana (or Jakatthakatha).

It is most common for these tales to reveal the circumstances that prompted a moral lesson, and end with the Buddha disclosing his identity in the present lives of the characters in the narrative. In often humorous and varied ways, the Buddha character may appear as a king, an outcast, a god, or an elephant–always showing and thus conveying to others an important moral virtue.