What Are Jataka Tales? - Shambhavi Nautiyal

What are Jataka Tales? What do you know about them?

Jataka Tales are a voluminous body of literature which is a compound of stories from the life of Gautam Buddha as well as his previous births.

In these stories, the future Buddha may appear as a king, an outcast, a deva, an animal—but, in whatever form, he exhibits some virtue that the tale thereby inculcates. Often, Jātaka tales include an extensive cast of characters who interact and get into various kinds of trouble - whereupon the Buddha character intervenes to resolve all the problems and bring about a happy ending. The Jātaka genre is based on the idea that the Buddha was able to recollect all his past lives and thus could use these memories to tell a story and illustrate his teachings.

Did the story connect with you today and why?

I think, yes, it did connect with me in some manner. For instance, I like that the king, at least, tried providing for his illegitimate child in the form of a signet ring, because that doesn’t happen often. Most of the time, women get estranged in such cases, by both their parents and the father of the child.

I was also able to relate when the king tried denying the fact that it was his son who had come to the court since although it wasn’t upright, it’s something we all have done in our lives- trying to deny a mistake due to shame and fear of being judged but I was glad when the kind got over it and owned his ‘mistake’ as he had thought.

And I feel like we all can take away something from this, even after thousands of years,i.e., that no child should be denied their parental love despite whatever society might think. This resonates with a thought I came across right after the class, “You need to fully experience the karmic cycle to break free from it” as only after he tried denying it did he realise its ramifications and started operating from a standpoint of love.

So for me, the moral of the story is ‘Own whatever you do, because, after some point, they will get to know about it anyway.'

Shambhavi Nautiyal 

Class- 10

Ahlcon Public School

Endless Cycles Of Desire - Rishona Chopra

 

We all have so many wishes in life. We want so much more, but it is through natural materialism that our greed grows. Like Mahatma Gandhi said - There is enough for everyone's needs but not for everyone's greed.

Greed is this emotion that is never endless and will continue forever, desire leads to sorrow and the end of desire is the ned of sorrow. The more we want, the more our ego increases; if we don't get it, we are unhappy. These are endless cycles of desire and sorrow. If only we realize that we have everything in the world and we don't need it anymore.

Don't we feel the want when we see someone has something that we don't, and it's all about material possessions. It's never about noticing that we made mistakes in life or never did good deeds and the want to be a better person but we think that being big doesn't lie in the heart but in what we possess.  

Rishona Chopra

Grade VI

Gyanshree School  

The worm I want to be - Rishona Chopra

 I want to be a worm who grew wings and flew away from the canal.

They didn't think they were more extraordinary because of little light but tried to attain peace and freedom and did not let pride and ignorance touch them.

The first group of worms represents the first stage of evolution in ignorance. They are those human beings who have crossed the physical and most crucial phase of evolution and risen to the consciousness of the higher mental being. The second group of worms represents the next stage of evolution in which human consciousness or the mind opens itself to a higher light beyond the rational mind and receives intuitions and inspirations from it but still lives within the world of ignorance. 

The last group of worms which grow wings and fly away from the canal are those human souls who proceed further and rise beyond the belt of human mental ignorance to the supreme freedom of the spirit. 

I want to be like the last group. That person who would raise beyond the belt of human ignorance and go beyond the sky. In the wheel of life, I want to be free from suffering and desire like Buddha. All stages represent the worms, and in the end, the first two stages still desire more and live in human and mental ignorance.

I want to be like the last group who open their wings and fly in the spiritual world with a smile.

Rishona Chopra 
Grade VI 
Gyanshree School