When The Buddha Was An Elephant

Around the beginning of the common era, Indian Buddhists began to collect fables, or Jataka tales, illuminating various human virtues and foibles--from kindness, cooperation, loyalty, and self-discipline on the one hand to greed, pride, foolishness, and treachery on the other. Animals, instead of people, took the leading roles, giving the tales a universal appeal. Tales of this kind have emerged all over the world--in the Mediterranean as Aesop's fables and in various other guises throughout the Middle East, East Asia, Africa, Russia, and Europe.

Author and painter Mark McGinnis has collected thirty-two of these tales and retold them in poetic yet accessible language, their original Buddhist messages firmly intact. Each story is beautifully illustrated with a full-color painting, making this a book that will appeal to both children and adults, Buddhist and non-Buddhist, who love fine stories about their fellow wise (and foolish) creatures.