Long before he became the Buddha, the being who would become Siddhattha Gotama travelled through countless lives, slowly perfecting the qualities needed for awakening. The Jātaka tales tell the stories of these lives. In them the future Buddha, called the Bodhisatta, appears as a king, a merchant, a teacher, a monkey, an elephant, a deer or a hare — but always as one striving to do good. For more than two thousand years these stories have been one of the main ways Buddhist values have been passed on, especially to children.
What is the Jātaka?
The Jātaka is one of the books of the Khuddaka Nikāya in the Sutta Piṭaka. Strictly speaking, the canonical text consists of verses; the full prose stories surrounding those verses are preserved in the commentary, the Jātakaṭṭhakathā. Together they contain 547 stories, arranged roughly by the number of verses in each, from short tales with a single verse to the long epics at the end of the collection.
Most tales follow a simple pattern. First comes a “story of the present”, describing an event in the Buddha’s time that prompted him to speak. Then comes the “story of the past”, the main tale. Verses carry its key moments, and at the end the Buddha identifies the characters: “At that time, the hare was I myself.”
The ten perfections
The tales show the Bodhisatta developing the ten perfections (pāramī), the qualities that, fulfilled over many lives, lead to Buddhahood:
- Generosity (dāna) and virtue (sīla)
- Renunciation (nekkhamma) and wisdom (paññā)
- Energy (viriya) and patience (khanti)
- Truthfulness (sacca) and determination (adhiṭṭhāna)
- Loving-kindness (mettā) and equanimity (upekkhā)
The last ten great stories are often said to illustrate these perfections one by one, ending with the Vessantara Jātaka, the story of a prince whose generosity knew no limit. It is the Bodhisatta’s final human life before his birth as Siddhattha.
The hare in the moon: the Sasa Jātaka
One of the most loved tales is the Sasa Jātaka (Jātaka 316). Once, the Bodhisatta was born as a wise hare living in a forest with three friends: a monkey, a jackal and an otter. The hare taught his friends to keep the precepts and to give generously, especially on the holy observance day. One such day, each set out to find something to offer any guest who might come. The otter found fish left on a riverbank, the jackal found some meat and a pot of curd in a watchman’s hut, and the monkey gathered mangoes.
The hare, however, ate only grass, and grass is no gift for a human guest. So he made a remarkable resolve: if anyone came asking for food, he would give his own body. His resolve was so strong that the throne of Sakka, king of the gods, grew warm. To test him, Sakka came down disguised as a hungry brahmin. The hare joyfully told him to gather wood and build a fire. Then, shaking himself three times so that no tiny creature living in his fur would be harmed, he leapt into the flames.
But the fire did not burn him; it felt cool. Sakka revealed who he was and, so that this act of giving would be remembered for the whole aeon, he drew the image of a hare on the face of the moon. That, the story says, is why we see a hare in the moon to this day.
Jātakas in Sri Lankan culture
In Sri Lanka the Jātakas are everywhere. In the fourteenth century they were rendered into Sinhala prose in the Pansiya Panas Jātaka Pota, the “Book of the 550 Jātakas”, which became a treasure of Sinhala literature. Their scenes cover the walls of temple image houses, painted in rows like a picture book so that people who could not read could still learn the Dhamma. Sri Lankan children still look up at the full moon and point out the hare (hāvā).
At Vesak, the stories come to life on a grand scale. Towering illuminated pandals (toraṇa), covered with thousands of lights, display painted panels of a Jātaka tale, often with a recorded narration explaining each scene to the crowds below. Jātaka stories have also inspired drama, songs and films, and they are a staple of Dhamma school lessons.
Why the stories matter
The Jātakas remind us that awakening is not a sudden accident but the fruit of patient effort across a long time. Each small act of generosity, honesty or patience is part of the same path the Bodhisatta walked. They also teach in a way the heart can easily remember: a child may forget a list of virtues, but will never forget the hare who leapt into the fire.
Practical takeaway: read one Jātaka tale this week, alone or with your family, and ask which perfection it illustrates. Then look for one chance to practise that same quality in your own life.
