ཕག་མའ་རྟགས་པ་བརྗད་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བའ་མད intro.17

intro.17

Finally, a note about the title of The Exemplary Tale About a Sow: Usually, avadānas involve a narration of a person’s actions that took place in a distant past, to which only the Buddha, in his omniscience, has access, as is the case in the Buddha’s own past life stories known as jātakas. The title, in those cases, refers to that previous existence of the person in question. In this case, however, the narrated events occurred in a more recent past, not long before they are here recounted by the Buddha to a gathering of monks at Śrāvastī, and the title points not to the lifetime that once was, but to the future life that would have been if it had not been for the Three Jewels.