Tales-Jatakas

Before you, young reader, are retellings of the Buddhist Jatakas — fairy tales created in Ancient India. Jatakas are tales about animals, birds, and fish, magical tales, parables, and historical tales. Jatakas were created based on early Buddhist folklore as tales about the previous incarnations of Buddha, who, before becoming a Buddha, was born 550 times. In each Jataka, Buddha (Bodhisattva) appears in a certain form — animal, bird, human, or divine.

The very first Jatakas were created in the 3rd century BC. Jatakas spread far beyond India. They influenced the corresponding literature of China and Japan. Through Iran and the Arab countries, Jatakas penetrated Europe, including Ukraine. For example, if you compare the ancient Indian Jataka "The Golden Duck", the Japanese folk tale "The Grateful Crane" and one of the oldest Ukrainian folk tales "The Little Duck", you will understand that people with very kindred spirits live on our planet.

The talented young Ukrainian illustrator Yana Hrankovska offers her interpretation of the Jatakas. Each fairy tale is like a separate performance with the participation of puppets, whose strings are pulled, apparently, by the Buddha himself. The illustrator dresses the heroes not only in Indian, but also in Chinese clothes, since Jatakas, as a popular form of folk art, were created in all countries of the Buddhist world (in China, Buddhism is one of the three leading religions). Actually, the oldest Jatakas have also been preserved in ancient Chinese and Tibetan translations. The 14th Dalai Lama, in particular, likes to use the Jatakas in his sermons. For millennia, the Jatakas have been a source for cultivating deep moral qualities: kindness, compassion, generosity, non-violence, self-sacrifice, mercy, honesty, loyalty, love for animals and birds. This is the first Ukrainian edition of the Jatakas in translation and retelling for children.