Week 11 Reading Notes: Jataka Tales Part A

This week I decided to not read more about the Krishna series and instead take a look at the Jataka Tales. I was really excited to get to read some of these great tales because I enjoy fables like Aesop's so much. All of the stories from part A were so good and all had great lessons embedded in them. Some of my favorite ones were "The Turtle that Couldn't Stop Talking", "The Monkey and the Crocodile", "The Ox who Won the Forfeit", and "The Foolish Timid Rabbit". As you can probably tell I enjoy the stories that use animals as characters the most. Different animals seem to put just another layer to the story that humans simply couldn't. Some even give you an idea of how the story

Crocodile wishing for the Monkeys Heart

will go. For instance in the story "The Monkey and the Crocodile", before I even began to read the story I figured this would be a type of trickster story because monkeys are known to be very intelligent and cunning creatures. These four stories all give great lessons as well. In the story the Monkey and the Crocodile, the crock is always out to get the monkey, but never can. So the monkey must always be on the lookout for the crock even when he says he will no longer trouble him. In "The Ox who Won the Forfeit", the man knew he had the strongest ox around but when he treated him cruelly the ox would not perform. However, when the ox was treated right he was strong and mighty. In The story "The Turtle that Couldn't Stop Talking" showed that sometimes one should simply keep their mouth shut or else something bad could happen. I could use the lessons from one of these stories for my portfolio project and in writing stories.

Bibliography
Jataka Tales (1912) Ellen C. Babbitt