Jatakas; Animal; Concordance of Buddhist Birth Stories; 本生經; 動物; 佛教本生故事
摘要
Among the Jatakas and avadanas attributed to Buddha as collected by Fausboll and Cowell there are about 262 stories which contain animals as actors. These are previous incarnatons of Buddha. He used material adapted to his moral message for his followers. Last year we concentrated on the moral messages and the artistic illustrations of the stories. Now，we focus on the animals. The stories feature animals in different situations, showing characters at times benevolent，other times not so much so. In listing the stories with the titles and primary references, enables the reader to find them either in Cowell (CJ) or Fausboll (FJ) or in a concise edition of Malalasekera (Mal) Dictionary of Pali Proper Names. Also，in my "Concordance of Buddhist Birth Stories" third edition 2000，you find vast references in world literature，which shows the influence of Buddha in fields of comparative religion，philosophy and artistic creativity. Most of all，it attests to the unparalleled Humanistic aspects of his concern toward human behavior. As such, it is an inexhaustible mine for studies in various disciplines of humanistic studies. 在福斯保爾和考威爾收集的《本生經》和《譬喻經》中，有262個故事含有動物作為劇中人. 它們都是佛陀的前身. 佛陀把這些材料改編後向他的信徒們傳播倫理. 去年我們曾著重討論了這些故事的道德說教和藝術圖畫. 現在我們討論動物. 故事描述了不同環境中的動物，其角色有時仁慈，有時不是那麼仁慈. 列出故事的名稱和主參考書後，讀者就可以在考威爾的本子 ( 略寫為CJ ) 和福斯保爾的本子 ( 略寫為FJ )，及馬拉拉色克拉 ( 略寫為Mal ) 編撰的《巴利文專有名詞字典》中查到. 我編撰的《佛教本生經故事索引》，2000年，第三版，為讀者提供了大量的參考資料. 從這些資料中我們可以看到佛陀在比較宗教學，比較哲學，藝術創作方面的影響. 最主的是，它證明了佛陀對人類行為所表現出來的無與倫比的關切. 因此，它是研究人文各門學科取之不盡，用之不竭的寶藏.
