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Week 12 Reading Notes: More Jatakas B

For the second half of my reading, I read more Jataka tales from the same book as before. This is one of my favorite collections of Jataka tales so far. The first story that I really enjoyed was the Great Elephant. It brought together sadness, a great message, and a happy ending. I mention sadness because that is something that is not seen very much in Jatakas, but this one was particularly emotional. Elephants are known to be noble animals and seeing one be so distraught over the safety of man hit a heart string with me. Because I have seen elephants in real life and even bathed them, I have a close connections with them. These men were not bad men either. They were trying to escape a terrible leader. This story also parallels modern issues. There are often immigrants that travel to try and find safe refuge from their country, but many do not make it on the way. Thinking abut someone who is willing to risk their life for people to be able to reach safety is something that could go really well with a story with a modern twist. Overall this may be one of my favorite stories that I have read so far.

For the second story, I feel a little different. This is another one of those stories that makes me a little bit mad. It was the Forrest Fire story. I get that when you have seven kids, at least one of them is going to be treated like to runt, but when you just leave them in a fire?? That made me so mad. It reminded me a bit of home alone, but in a less comedic way. I wonder if the family ever came back and what happened with the dynamic if they did. That would be a great sequel story that I could write.

(Little Quail and the Fire. Source: Babel)

Bibliography: Twenty Jataka Tales
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  1. Asha ChandrasekarNovember 11, 2019 at 12:08 AM

    Hi Jacob! Elephants hold a near and dear place in my heart as well! I believe that this jataka is definitely one that people should read as it really made me feel for the story. Even though it was a sad story, it pulled through with a good message and allowed the readers and the audience to feel for the story and learn something from it. I like how you tied the knot with modern day issues and how you added some parallelism here for people to relate it to. Good work with this!

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