Selected Verses from the Birth Stories
The Jataka ("Birth Stories") is a Khuddaka Nikāya collection of 547 traditional numbered tales recounting the Buddha-to-be's past lives. In every full version the verse is set inside a prose narrative — but that narrative framework is later commentary, not part of the canonical CC0 text this site draws from. Bhikkhu Sujato's CC0 translation covers only the verse portions, and only for 82 of the 547 traditional numbers: Ja 1 through Ja 79, spanning the entire Ekakanipāta (Book of the Ones) as far as translation allows, plus three further standalone poems — one later in that same Ekakanipāta (Ja 126), and two from much larger nipātas beyond it (Ja 159, from the Book of the Twos; Ja 466, from the Book of the Twelves).
This collection can therefore never be "complete" the way this site's Dhammapada or Udāna are. Each entry states plainly that it is a bare verse excerpt from a partial selection — often a single aphoristic stanza whose full story exists only in post-canonical commentary, which this reading guide draws on for context but does not present as canonical text. Each entry has the same reading guide, full Sujato translation, and self-check quiz as our other series.
This site's Jātaka selection is now complete at its own maximum: all 82 of the traditional 547 numbers with a Sujato CC0 translation are represented. That covers the entire Ekakanipāta (Book of the Ones) as far as translation allows — all eight fully-translated chapters (Apaṇṇakavagga, Sīlavagga, Kuruṅgavagga, Kulāvakavagga, Atthakāmavagga, Āsīsavagga, Itthivagga, and Varuṇavagga, 79 poems in total; the Varuṇavagga's own traditional tenth poem, Bhīmasenajātaka, has no Sujato translation and so is not included), plus the sole translated poem from a much later ninth chapter, the Kusanāḷivagga (Ja 126) — together with two further standalone poems from considerably larger nipātas beyond the Ekakanipāta entirely: the Mora Paritta (Ja 159, Book of the Twos) and The Sea Merchants (Ja 466, Book of the Twelves, this selection's longest single poem). No further poems can be added without a wider CC0 translation than currently exists.
