Ebook: The Jātakamālā: The Marvelous Companion - Life stories of the Buddha

The present volume is based on the English translation of Aryashura's Jatakamala by Joseph Speyer, published in England in 1895. While Speyer's work was a major accomplishment for its time, it was intended as a literal rendition of the Sanskrit, primarily for scholars; as a result, its diction and phrasing are not well suited to a general or contemporary audience. We have therefore made numerous changes in its language and style, and have spelled Sanskrit terms and names phonetically.
To assure the accuracy of this new version of Aryashura's work, we have carefully compared it to the Tibetan text of the Jatakamala as it appears in the Nyingma Edition of the sDe-dge bsTan-'gyur. Translated from the Sanskrit in the eighth century by Vidyakarasimha and the Tibetan lotsawa Manjushrivarman, the Tibetan version is very close to the Sanskrit text used by Speyer, except that in isolated passages its meaning appears to be clearer. We are satisfied that the resulting text presented here is generally faithful to Aryashura's original work. Still, there remain difficult passages, and further study and research into the existing manuscripts of the Jatakamala by qualified scholars may lead to revisions in future editions.