Extra Credit Reading Notes: Twenty Jataka Tales
I really enjoy reading Jataka Tales for extra reading. I've already read about the Ramayana and Mahabharata, so this way I get new stories each time! I think next week I might look more into Gods and Goddesses, but I wanted to do one more week of this. I really do like these a bunch. I think that there's a lot to say about how each other tells these tradition stories and how they are passed down from generation to generation. We have fables like "The Little Red Hen" and India has these! I think it's so neat how storytelling with a moral is such a universal concept in every part of the world.
The Guilty Dogs from Twenty Jataka Tales by Noor Inayat
This one stuck one to me for a dog could never be guilty! Except these rich ones I guess. I'm glad it worked out in the end. It's nice that at least someone was levelheaded in pointing out the injustice in slaughtering every dog in the city for one dog's misdoing. In fact, it was the king's own dogs who did the deed in the first place and the plebeian dogs did nothing wrong! It's nice that they were pampered until the end of time as all dogs should be.
The Young Parrot
I always seem to enjoying stories with cute animals. I think that's a flaw(?) of mine. I know that the child-parrot is not supposed to be too crazy large, but I am imagining it to be crazy large. Comically large. I think that would be funny to have your rice stolen by a Clifford sized parrot. At that point, I'd just let the parrot have the rice. I'm not sure why the laborer was so intent on catching this bird. If it were me, I simply would have let the bird steal probably. It's a bird. Birds... do that. Again, a happy ending! Cute! The bird loves their parents!
The Swan Kingdom
I love the imagery of a white swan on a pretty blue lake. So nice. Sixty thousand swans is a lot of swans for sure, I guess that's why it's a kingdom of swans. I found this one harder to keep up with despite its short length. I think that because of how short it was, there didn't need to be names. I would want to expand more on the conflict between them as well. I liked how everything worked out, but what interests me about this story is how diplomacy works in this scenario. I wonder if swans use it like we do. They certainly seem to in this story. If I rewrote this, I would want to talk about that more in a funny way!
The Guilty Dogs from Twenty Jataka Tales by Noor Inayat
This one stuck one to me for a dog could never be guilty! Except these rich ones I guess. I'm glad it worked out in the end. It's nice that at least someone was levelheaded in pointing out the injustice in slaughtering every dog in the city for one dog's misdoing. In fact, it was the king's own dogs who did the deed in the first place and the plebeian dogs did nothing wrong! It's nice that they were pampered until the end of time as all dogs should be.
The Young Parrot
I always seem to enjoying stories with cute animals. I think that's a flaw(?) of mine. I know that the child-parrot is not supposed to be too crazy large, but I am imagining it to be crazy large. Comically large. I think that would be funny to have your rice stolen by a Clifford sized parrot. At that point, I'd just let the parrot have the rice. I'm not sure why the laborer was so intent on catching this bird. If it were me, I simply would have let the bird steal probably. It's a bird. Birds... do that. Again, a happy ending! Cute! The bird loves their parents!
The Swan Kingdom
I love the imagery of a white swan on a pretty blue lake. So nice. Sixty thousand swans is a lot of swans for sure, I guess that's why it's a kingdom of swans. I found this one harder to keep up with despite its short length. I think that because of how short it was, there didn't need to be names. I would want to expand more on the conflict between them as well. I liked how everything worked out, but what interests me about this story is how diplomacy works in this scenario. I wonder if swans use it like we do. They certainly seem to in this story. If I rewrote this, I would want to talk about that more in a funny way!
A Kombai, which is a breed of dog located in Southern India (Source)
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