Reading Notes: English Lives of Buddha Part B

These are notes over the English Lives of Buddha by Joseph Jacobs. I liked the story called "King, Man, and Skull." In this story, a wicked king is confronted with another king's skull, which he tries to pay honors to with dust. However, when he kicked the skull, it felt nothing and the dust feel out. This showed the king that all of his earthly possessions would do him no good in death. (I think this was the meaning of the story). A sage, like in a lot of stories, was the one to show the king this, which is a useful way to bring wisdom to a story. The story called Greedy Dog followed more of a fable format, with an animal learning the lesson instead of a human. However, this story has both English and Indian roots. In this story, the dog tried to go to two breakfasts and ended up missing both. The story was very short, which was kind of like a jataka: just trying to get to the core of the story and not really caring about all the fluff.

Skull on Pixabay