The “Garland of Birth-stories” belongs to the Canon of the Northern Buddhists. For the discovery of this work we are indebted to Mr. Brian H. Hodgson, who as early as 1828 mentioned it among the interesting specimens of Bauddha scriptures communicated to him by his old Patan monk, and also procured copies of it. One of these was deposited in the library of the college of Fort William, now belonging to the Bengal Asiatic Society, and was described, in 1882, by Rājendralāla Mitra. Another was forwarded to the Paris library.
The text that follows is substantially a transcription of the translation of Jatakamālā made by J. S. Speyer and published originally in 1895 under the title Garland of Birth Stories. In preparing this edition I have made some small changes, mainly in presentation, so as to make the text more readable, which I will outline here.
These include splitting paragraphs which were very long in the original publication; removing opening quotation marks from each new paragraph when the speech is continued (an old practice now largely abandoned); reformatting for clarity, especially in regard to distinguishing between verse and prose; changing Roman numerals to the more familiar Arabic; and exchanging the written “&c.” with “and so on”, which is how I have read it in the audio recordings which accompany this text……Ānandajoti Bhikkhu
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