Benjamin J. Goldstein

This project is a critical, intertextual study of Jataka anthologies composed by Tibetan masters that investigates the transmission of the Indian Buddhist narrative universe into Tibet. Grounded in a comprehensive analysis of scriptural sources utilized by the Third Karmapa — primarily his “Hundred Jatakas of the Buddha, the Blessed One” written in 1314—, this study cross-references those scriptural sources with contemporaneous writers' subsequent anthologies. Surveying the genre in this way, the study identifies significant patterns of employing parallel Jataka narratives, supporting that the “Hundred Jatakas” was designed to function as a curriculum to transmit the Indian Buddhist narrative universe into Tibet.