Page:Buddhist Birth Stories, or, Jātaka Tales.djvu/73

Rh bas-reliefs has actually inscribed over it two distinct names in full!

The reason for this is very plain. When a fable about a lion and a jackal was told (as in No. 157) to show the advantage of a good character, and it was necessary to choose a short title for it, it was called 'The Lion Jātaka,' or 'The Jackal Jātaka,' or even 'The Good Character Jātaka'; and when a fable was told about a tortoise, to show the evil results which follow on talkativeness (as in No. 215), the fable might as well be called 'The Chatterbox Jātaka' as 'The Tortoise Jātaka,' and the fable is referred to accordingly under both those names. It must always have been difficult, if not impossible, to fix upon a short title which should at once characterize the lesson to be taught, and the personages through whose acts it was taught; and different names would thus arise, and become interchangeable. It would be wrong therefore to attach too much importance to the difference of the names on the bas-reliefs and in the Jātaka Book. And in