Jataka stories: The short story genre evolved from these...
As a young boy, perhaps like all in that age group, Jataka stories mirrored Buddhism. As some of us discovered the attractions of science, we began to question the themes literally, settings and the characters depicted in these stories. Naturally one found them totally unbelievable. There is no image of a rabbit on the moon! Shadows of doubt take root.
The faith shakes and crumbles. One seeks solace in science. That was my story in a nutshell.
In my case, it did not stop there.
Years ago, I read a work by Martin Wickremasinghe on the history of Sinhalese history. There, he looks at the Jataka stories as a literary work, and discovers or points out the human dimension covered in those stories. That was indeed an eye-opener. Yes, it all makes sense when viewed from another angle.
Jataka stories, he points out, are multi-layer creations. Either one could read them at the visual layer, and believe in the painting of a rabbit, or dig deeper and see the message, the moral of the stories.
At the time when my children read this particular story, they already knew that the moon was a planetary body, and that the dark markings are really the shadows of geographical features on its surface. The technology feed in these countries make sure that romance disappears from young lives much earlier than what we were used to.
So, how do I explain the story to them? Go to lower layers and extract the moral: What is the moral, graspable at their age?
Good deeds shine!
Here, the rabbit made the supreme sacrifice. Where else but the moon to publicise that good deed!
What do you think?
There are officially 550 Jataka stories. Isn't it about time we had another look at them?