Extra Credit Reading: Jatakas Take 2

For this reading assignment I decided to go back over the Jatakas to see if there was something new that caught my eye at the end of the semester. Having read so much new information and had the creative juices flowing through my brain for 16 weeks, I thought it might be fun to browse back through these to see if there is something that I can base my very last story on. So far, these have been my favorite stories to retell throughout the semester.

1st thing I learned, they were told from Buddha. I had read more things from Buddha this semester, but had no idea that we started our semester off this way! Well...I feel dumb now.

The Foolish Timid Rabbit
I did a story about this Jataka and added it to my portfolio for the semester. However, I've read so many different versions of this story this semester that it was nice to go back to the original and see how each adaption changed the story just slightly to be told in the author's own words. It's fun to see how many different creative things are out there.

The Turtle and the King (Link to story here!)
This is one that I don't think that I've seen anyone write about this semester. It was about a king who had a pond his sons swam in. He told them to look for fish and when they did, they found a turtle. They were scared of it because they had never seen one before. The king assumed it was a demon and told his guards to kill it. They devised a plan to throw it back into the water so it would drown. The turtle convinced them this was the way to die. When they threw his back into the water, the turtle swam away and lived happily ever after.

I think if I were to retell this story, I would use something like artificial intelligence to tell it. People fear what they don't know and seeing a robot might be scary. They could send it out into the desert so that it would die of starvation or thirst. But little do they know that it is a robot and can live without those things. It could also be resourceful and build a new city and new robots to keep itself entertained and sustained. 

Title: Artificial Intelligence

Source: Flickr 

The Turtle and the Geese

I think that I have only seen one student retell this story, but I've seen many versions of it throughout the reading in this class. I think this is a popular tale to be told in Indian Jatakas

The Cunning Crane and the Crab

I think this is one of the most popular stories to be retold for this class. I did think it was interesting though that most students chose to change the ending to where the character that represented the crane didn't die in their version. There were a lot of them that just ended with the crane flying away or leaving the area. They also glossed over the killing of the fish part, or whatever represented the fish in their story. I have noticed that a lot of these stories end up in death for one or more of the characters. Quite dark. 

The Crocodile and the Monkey's Heart (Link to story here!)

This was another really popular one that was retold in this class. I did see a lot of the versions that kept to the original animal characters and the same story line, but with a few tweaks to make it their own. What comes to mind when I read this story is a tourist or someone new to a country and a con man trying to lure the new person into making a costly mistake. Either their organs (if you wanted to go really dark) or tricking them out of their money because they didn't know any better in a foreign country. This would be a great story to tell if a person was on vacation in a foreign country where they don't speak the language and don't know how much things cost. 

Title: Crowded Travelling

Source: Pixabay

The Monkey Who Gathered Lotuses

This was a story that I don't remember reading before and I don't think that I had seen anyone retell this story in our class either. It's about a monkey that was born to a king who didn't like any of his sons. He was scared he was going to be overthrown by them so he had nothing to do with them. The Buddha, who was born as a monkey in this story, asked his mother to take him to meet his father. She was worried, but gave into his pleading. The kind devised a plan to have his son go down to the pond to pick lotuses. But there was an ogre that lived in the pond and the king thought he would kill his son. The plan however did not work and the Buddha monkey picked the flowers without getting killed. When he returned, the people picked him to be their king. 

Goblin City

This was not one that I remember reading either. The story starts out about sailors that are brought to this city and have to stay there. The female goblins trick the sailors into thinking that the city is just as normal as any other city. One night, one of the sailors was awake and saw that his new wife was eating her previous husband. He told all the other sailors about it and they were trying to come up with a plan to escape. In enters a fairy that hates the goblins and wants to save the sailors. She sent her flying horse to rescue all those who wanted to leave. They left and were safe. Those who didn't believe the sailor's tales were left to be eaten by the goblins. I don't even know what to think about this story or how to retell it!