Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c2.48

c2.48

Such is the great value of these simple stories. They have penetrated deeply into the minds of the people among whom they have been told. Even to-day their popularity among Buddhist people is not lessened. To these stories the Sinhalese folk still listen all the night long with unaffected delight.⁵ In Burmā too the Jātakas are, and have been for centuries, the delight of both learned and unlearned, of monks and laymen alike.⁶ So also in Tibet, in China, and in other places where Buddhism has penetrated and flourished.⁷