Part of the canon of sacred Buddhist literature, this collection of some 550 anecdotes and fables depicts earlier incarnations -- sometimes as an animal, sometimes as a human -- of the being who would become Siddhartha Gautama, the future Buddha. Traditional birth and death dates of Gautama are 563-483 BC. The Jataka tales are dated between 300 BC and 400 AD.

Sampati was an old eagle. He lived alone on a rock on the southern seashore. One day, he noticed that the beach was crowded with monkeys. He asked the monkeys what had brought them to the seashore. Where were they from? Jambuvan, an elderly bear, spoke, “Rama, the prince of Ayodhya was living in the forest with his wife, Sita, and brother, Lakshmana. When the two brothers were...............