they were so fond. The process must have been complete by the middle of the 3rd century B.C.; for we find at that date illustrations of the Jātakas in the bas-reliefs on the railing round the Bharahat tope with the titles of the Jātaka stories inscribed above them in the characters of that period.[1] The hero of each story is made into a Bodhisatta; that is, a being who is destined, after a number of subsequent births, to become a Buddha. This rapid development of the Bodhisatta theory is the distinguishing feature in the early history of Buddhism, and was both cause and effect of the simultaneous growth of the Jātaka book. In adopting the folk-lore and fables already current in India, the Buddhists did not change them very much. The stories as preserved to us, are for the most part Indian rather than Buddhist. The ethics they inculcate or suggest are milk for babes; very simple in character and referring almost exclusively to matters common to all schools of thought in India, and indeed elsewhere. Kindness, purity, honesty, generosity, worldly wisdom, perseverance, are the usual virtues praised; the higher ethics of the Path are scarcely mentioned. These stories, popular with all, were especially appreciated by that school of Buddhists that laid stress on the Bodhisatta theory—a school that obtained its chief support, and probably had its origin, in the extreme north-west of India and in the highlands of Asia. That school adopted, from the early centuries of our era, the use of Sanskrit, instead of Pali, as the means of literary expression. It is almost impossible, therefore, that they would have carried the canonical Pali book, voluminous as it is, into Central Asia. Shorter collections of the original stories, written in Sanskrit, were in vogue among them. One such collection, the Jātaka-mālā, by Ārya Sūra (6th century), is still extant. Of the existence of another collection, though the Sanskrit original has not yet been found, we have curious evidence. In the 6th century a book of Sanskrit fables was translated into Pahlavi, that is, old Persian (see Bidpai). In succeeding centuries this work was retranslated into Arabic and Hebrew, thence into Latin and Greek and all the modern languages of Europe. The book bears a close resemblance to the earlier chapters of a late Sanskrit fable book called, from its having five chapters, the Pancha tantra, or Pentateuch.
The introduction to the old Jātaka book gives the life of the historical Buddha. That introduction must also have reached Persia by the same route. For in the 8th century St John of Damascus put the story into Greek under the title of Barlaam and Josaphat. This story became very popular in the West. It was translated into Latin, into seven European languages, and even into Icelandic and the dialect of the Philippine Islands. Its hero, that is the Buddha, was canonized as a Christian saint; and the 27th of November was officially fixed as the date for his adoration as such.
The book popularly known in Europe as Aesop’s Fables was not written by Aesop. It was put together in the 14th century at Constantinople by a monk named Planudes, and he drew largely for his stories upon those in the Jātaka book that had reached Europe along various channels. The fables of Babrius and Phaedrus, written respectively in the 1st century before, and in the 1st century after, the Christian era, also contain Jātaka stories known in India in the 4th century B.C. A great deal has been written on this curious question of the migration of fables. But we are still very far from being able to trace the complete history of each story in the Jātaka book, or in any one of the later collections. For India itself the record is most incomplete. We have the original Jātaka book in text and translation. The history of the text of the Pancha tantra, about a thousand years later, has been fairly well traced out. But for the intervening centuries scarcely anything has been done. There are illustrations, in the bas-reliefs of the 3rd century B.C., of Jātakas not contained in the Jātaka book. Another collection, the Cariyâ piṭaka, of about the same date, has been edited, but not translated. Other collections both in Pali and Sanskrit are known to be extant in MS; and a large number of Jātaka stories, not included in any formal collection, are mentioned, or told in full, in other works.
Authorities.—V. Fausböll, The Jataka, Pali text (7 vols., London, 1877–1897), (Eng. trans., edited by E. B. Cowell, 6 vols., Cambridge, 1895–1907); Cariyâ piṭaka, edited by R. Morris for the Pali Text Society (London, 1882); H. Kern, Jātaka-mālā, Sanskrit text (Cambridge, Mass., 1891), (Eng. trans. by J. S. Speyer, Oxford, 1895); Rhys Davids, Buddhist Birth Stories (with full bibliographical tables) (London, 1880); Buddhist India (chap. xi. on the Jātaka Book) (London, 1903); E. Kuhn, Barlaam und Joasaph (Munich, 1893); A. Cunningham, The Stupa of Bharhut (London, 1879). (T. W. R. D.)
JATH, a native state of India, in the Deccan division of
Bombay, ranking as one of the southern Mahratta jagirs. With
the small state of Daphlapur, which is an integral part of it, it
forms the Bijapur Agency, under the collector of Bijapur district.
Area, including Daphlapur, 980 sq. m. Pop. (1901), 68,665,
showing a decline of 14% in the decade. Estimated revenue
£24,000; tribute £700. Agriculture and cattle-breeding are
carried on; there are no important manufactures. The chief,
whose title is deshmukh, is a Mahratta of the Daphle family.
The town of Jath is 92 m. S.E. of Satara. Pop. (1901), 5404.
JÁTIVA (formerly written Xativa), or San Felipe de Játiva,
a town of eastern Spain, in the province of Valencia, on the right
bank of the river Albaida, a tributary of the Júcar, and at the
junction of the Valencia-Murcia and Valencia-Albacete railways.
Pop. (1900), 12,600. Játiva is built on the margin of a fertile
and beautiful plain, and on the southern slopes of the Monte
Bernisa, a hill with two peaks, each surmounted by a castle.
With its numerous fountains, and spacious avenues shaded
with elms or cypresses, the town has a clean and attractive
appearance. Its collegiate church, dating from 1414, but rebuilt
about a century later in the Renaissance style, was formerly a
cathedral, and is the chief among many churches and convents.
The town-hall and a church on the castle hill are partly constructed
of inscribed Roman masonry, and several houses date
from the Moorish occupation. There is a brisk local trade in
grain, fruit, wine, oil and rice.
Játiva was the Roman Saetabis, afterwards Valeria Augusta, of Carthaginian or Iberian origin. Pliny (23–79) and Martial (c. 40–102) mention the excellence of its linen cloth. Under the Visigoths (c. 483–711) it became an episcopal see; but early in the 8th century it was captured by the Moors, under whom it attained great prosperity, and received its present name. It was reconquered by James I. of Aragon (1213–1276). During the 15th and 16th centuries, Játiva was the home of many members of the princely house of Borgia or Borja, who migrated hither from the town of Borja in the province of Saragossa. Alphonso Borgia, afterwards Pope Calixtus III., and Rodrigo Borgia, afterwards Pope Alexander VI., were natives of Játiva, born respectively in 1378 and 1431. The painter Jusepe Ribera was also born here in 1588. Owing to its gallant defence against the troops of the Archduke Charles in the war of the Spanish succession, Játiva received the additional name of San Felipe from Philip V. (1700–1746).
JĀTS, or Juts, a people of north-western India, who numbered
altogether more than 7 millions in 1901. They form a considerable
proportion of the population in the Punjab, Rājputana and the
adjoining districts of the United Provinces, and are also widely
scattered through Sind and Baluchistan. Some writers have identified
the Juts with the ancient Getae, and there is strong reason
to believe them a degraded tribe of Rājputs, whose Scythic origin
has also been maintained. Hindu legends point to a prehistoric
occupation of the Indus valley by this people, and at the time
of the Mahommedan conquest of Sind (712) they, with a cognate
tribe called Meds, constituted the bulk of the population. They
enlisted under the banner of Mahommed bin Kāsim, but at a
later date offered a vigorous resistance to the Arab invaders.
In 836 they were overthrown by Amran, who imposed on them
a tribute of dogs, and used their arms to vanquish the Meds. In
1025, however, they had gathered audacity, not only to invade
Mansura, and compel the abjuration of the Mussulman amir, but
to attack the victorious army of Mahmūd, laden with the spoil of
Somnāth. Chastisement duly ensued: a formidable flotilla,
collected at Mūltān, shattered in thousands the comparatively
defenceless Jāt boats on the Indus, and annihilated their national
pretensions. It is not until the decay of the Mogul Empire that
the Jāts again appear in history. One branch of them, settled
- ↑ A complete list of these inscriptions will be found in Rhys Davids’s Buddhist India, p. 209.
