Week 11: Reading Notes A- Jataka


Why the owl is not  king of the birds?
laptop notebook computer bird sweet cute equipment toy owl device bird of prey figure headphones figurine funny carving workplace technical device

Image: Owl, Source: Pxhere

There was once a time when each species took a member of their own species to be their king. However, the birds complained that they did not have a ruler and that they wanted a king. They decided amongst themselves that they wanted the owl as their king. However, the crow complained that he didn’t want the owl as his king for he was afraid of the expression that the owl wore on his face. From that time onwards, the owls and crows have been enemies. Finally, the birds chose the turtle dove as their king.

Compared to all the other jatakas that I have read this semester, this one has been very underwhelming. Usually the purpose of the jataka is to provide a moral story to the reader; however this story did not have anything of the sort. We could possibly say that since the crow judged the owl’s ability as king based in his facial expression, it is possible that the moral is not judge someone based on their physical appearance. However, this conclusion is a long stretch. Also, there wasn’t that much detail in the story and it wasn’t as engaging as the other stories have read this semester.

Bibliography: Babbitt, Ellen C. “Why the owl not the king of the birds,” Jataka Tales. 

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