Thank you, Bhante, I appreciate your response. What seems to make the Jatakas different from all of the other books in the Sutta Pitaka, is that most of the verses seem to *demand* commentary. That is, the verses contain references to proper names, and so they are unintelligible by themselves. Different than say, the verses in the Dhammapada, which have tremendous Dhammic value and do not seem to require commentary. So much so, that it is difficult to read the Jataka verses systematically without knowing the background stories.

Do you have any thoughts on what this means, why the verses in the Jatakas contain proper names and do not seem to stand by themselves, unlike all of the other books in the Sutta Pitaka?

I appreciate the invitation to DhammaWheel. I have not checked it out yet, but one thing I like about this group is that because it has Pali in the name it seems to get a higher level of discussion than you sometimes get in other Buddhist groups.


Mudita,

tharpa

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, Kumara Bhikkhu <kumara.bhikkhu@...> wrote:
>
> You got it right. The actual Jataka text consists of only verses. You
> may notice that sometimes the story does not even gel with the
> verses. The rather strained connection gives the impression of a
> force fit. The is parallel to the Dhammapada verses and the stories
> that are attached to them.
>
> While the word Jataka has popularly been translated as Birth Stories,
> per se it only means "born; arisen". My teacher, Bhante Aggacitta,
> said that it originally probably refers to the verses that has
> spontaneously arisen in the mind of the person/people who uttered these words.
>
> Btw, I'd like to invite you all to www.Dhammawheel.com. It's a better
> platform for discussions, and more active.
>
> kb
>