Tibetan Tales, Derived from Indian Sources

These ancient parables traveled from India across the high passes into Tibet, where they were woven into the sacred fabric of Buddhist scripture. Schiefner and Ralston recovered them from the Kah-gyur, that vast canonical library of Tibetan Buddhism, and present them here as they were told for centuries, by monks to seekers, by parents to children, passed down through generations as vessels of moral instruction and hard-won wisdom. The tales carry the sediment of ages: tricksters and saints, kings and beggars, animals that speak and demons that transform. Here are stories of karma and consequence, of wisdom won through trials, of the thin veil between the mundane and the miraculous. They operate on multiple levels, a simple folk tale on the surface, a Buddhist teaching beneath, with something new to reveal with each reading. The translators' extensive notes trace the journey of each tale from Indian original to Tibetan adaptation, documenting how stories migrate across cultures and transform in transit. This is not merely folklore collection but a window into how wisdom travels.