Education has a pivotal role in Buddhism. Buddha was a great teacher. His pupils were missionaries, who transmitted his doctrines to the people at large. The doctrines were esoteric “morals” above the levels of understanding of the uneducated mass.
He conceived the method of instruction by telling stories which illustrated episodes of his past experiences in which he played the role of people, animals other than himself. At the end of the stories he identified himself. These stories were his “birth-stories” the JÁtakas and the Avadanas.
