By Kurtis Schaeffer (University of Virginia, 2009)
This is the Tengyur’s section of commentaries on the Jātaka Tales (སྐྱེས་རབས་, skyes rabs), and contains eight works in five volumes (D.4179-D.4186). These eight works represent some of the most beautiful and technically complex literature to be translated into Tibetan. Jātaka literature was a major inspiration for Tibetan poets and authors of narrative fiction.
The section begins with Āryaśura’s classic Garland of Birth Tales (སྐྱེས་རབས་ཕྲེང་བ་, skyes rabs phreng ba, jātakamāla, D.4179), a collection of thirty-six individual narratives, which is immediately followed by a commentary upon the work by Dharmakīrti (D.4180).
The next two works are Sanskrit dramas (D.4182-D.4183), following which is Kṣemendra’s famous Creeping Vine of Bodhisattva Narratives (D.4184), a massive collection (in 695 folios) of narratives composed in ornate verse. This work was instrumental in forming aesthetic sentiments among Tibetan literati, and was reprinted many times outside of the canon as well. An equally famous work follows, Aśvaghoṣa’s Acts of the Buddha (སངས་རྒྱས་ཀྱི་སྤྱོད་པ་, sangs rgyas kyi spyod pa, buddhacarita, D.4185). A brief work (D.4186) concludes the section, this one translated by the twelfth/thirteenth century scholar, Tropu Lotsawa Jampé Pel (ཁྲོ་ཕུ་ལོ་ཙཱ་བ་བྱམས་པའི་དཔལ་, khro phu lo tsā ba byams pa’i dpal). All of the works in the Jātaka section were translated after the eleventh century.
Literature: For a translation of Āryaśura’s classic Garland of Birth Tales, see Arya Shura, Garland of the Buddha’s Past Lives, tr. Justin Meiland (New York: New York University Press, 2009); see also J. S. Speyer, tr., The Jātakamālā, or, Bodhisattvāvadānamālā (Garland of Birth-Stories) of Āryasūra: With English Translation (New Delhi: Akshaya Prakashan, 2007).