Readings of the Vessantara Jātaka

Columbia Readings of Buddhist Literature

by Steven Collins (Editor)

The Vessantara Jataka tells the story of Prince Vessantara, who attained the Perfection of Generosity by giving away his fortune, his children, and his wife. Vessantara was the penultimate rebirth as a human of the future Gotama Buddha, and his extreme charity has been represented and reinterpreted in texts, sermons, rituals, and art throughout South and Southeast Asia and beyond. This anthology features well-respected anthropologists, textual scholars in religious and Buddhist studies, and art historians, who engage in sophisticated readings of the text and its ethics of giving, understanding of attachment and nonattachment, depiction of the trickster, and unique performative qualities. They reveal the story to be as brilliantly layered as a Homeric epic or Shakespearean play, with aspects of tragedy, comedy, melodrama, and utopian fantasy intertwined to problematize and scrutinize Theravada Buddhism's cherished virtues.

232 pages, Paperback

First published March 22, 2016

Reviews

[Marcus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Note that this doesn’t contain any version of the Vessantara Jataka, but rather several articles analyzing that famous story of the Buddha’s penultimate lifetime. I find the story itself meaningful but shocking, and the analyses provided very interesting.