Sakyamuni's One Hundred Fables
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Authors
Liao, Te-chen
Saṅghasena
Issue Date
1981
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Type
Book, Whole
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Abstract
Here is a paperback version of 98 Buddhist fables. The book is apparently privately published by the translator. I read the first eleven. They seem to me to be closest to the pious anecdotes we read in hagiographical Christian literature like Rodriguez' The Practice of Perfection and Christian Virtues. They tend to show the folly of mistakes in early spirituality. Typical failures are to do a little something, to find it good, and then to overdo it. Alternatively, one fails and then tries to cover the failure and so compounds the problem. The frequent negative conclusion is that one is laughed at, or as one typo has it, laughted at (2). There are several such typos on the early pages I read. Let me report on three of these first fables. The first fable features a man who finds a little salt helping the flavor of his food. He then eats a great deal of salt on an empty stomach. So some monks find a little fasting good and then overdo their fasting. Fable 9 finds a man praising his father for giving up sexual desires completely from his earliest youth; he is laughed at when people ask how he came to be conceived. Fable 11 presents a Brahman who predicts that his son will die in a week. To save his reputation for accurate predictions, he kills his son and people come to respect him as a prophet. The introduction claims that Aesop's fables teach moral principles, while Sakyamuni's fables illustrate a religious precept to reflect the nature of human being. These latter are thus in this opinion strictly a religious literature. After an epilogue and a list of errata, apparently all the fables are told in Chinese.
Description
Citation
Publisher
Apparently privately published
R. Liao
R. Liao
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Identifier
7557 (Access ID)