A History of Indian Literature v2.c19.s3.t2.358

v2.c19.s3.t2.358

The fable has here shrunk to a meaningless skeleton, and the most important thing about it is the moral, which in this version (as in Jātaka No. 57, where it is also found) is entirely unfitting. In the same way, the Vessantara Jātaka, which, as we have seen, is an epic of 786 verses in the Jātaka book, is, in the Cariyāpiṭaka, I, 9, squeezed into 58 meagre verses, in which all the emphasis is laid on the miracles, such as the quaking of the earth, etc. Only five verses of the Vessantara epic are to be found word for word in the Cariyāpiṭaka also.