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Indian fiction abounds in stories of simpletons, and probably the oldest extant drolleries of the Gothamite type are found in the Játakas, or Buddhist Birth-stories.
The germ of all stories of this class is perhaps found in the Játakas, or Buddhist Birth Stories: A pair of geese resolve to migrate to another country, and agree to carry with them a tortoise, their intimate friend, taking the ends of a stick between their bills, and the tortoise grasping it by the middle with his mouth.
The original Pali text of the Commentary on the Jatakas, written in Ceylon probably about the fifth century of our era. Davids considers its account down to the time of Gautama's return to Kapilavastu, "the best authority we have."
And in the Buddhist Játakas we find what is probably the original of a world-wide story: A man was chopping a felled tree, when a mosquito settled on his bald head and stung him severely. Calling to his son, who was sitting near him, he said, "My boy, there is a mosquito stinging my head, like the thrust of a spear drive it off."
Thus whatever ideas were prevalent in Persia, in the Hellenistic kingdoms, or in Central Asia may also have been prevalent in north-western India, where was situated the university town of Taxila frequently mentioned in the Jâtakas as a seat of Buddhist learning.
The confusion shown in the Buddhist Jatakas, wherein Buddha, in the previous existences which prepared him for his great and holy mission, was sometimes a saint and sometimes a gambler and a thief, is scarcely greater, from an ethical point of view, than that which evolution encounters in bridging the chasm between brute instinct and the lofty ethics of the perfected man.
It pervades the Jâtaka stories, and more than once he is said to have smiled when remembering some previous birth. Some suttas, such as the tales of the Great King of Glory, and of King Mahâ Vijita's sacrifice , are simply Jâtakas in another form—interesting stories full of edification for those who can understand but not to be taken as a narrative of facts.
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