The Buddhist Monastic establishments across the Indian sub-continent were richly embellished with the sculptural panels of visual narratives. The narrative art mainly centered around the great events in the life time of Buddha and his Previous Birth Stories. In the early centuries of Christian era, the Kings and Donors gave more preference to the Previous Birth Stories of the Enlightened One as they convey morals and ethics, useful to the society. The book entitled Jatakas in Buddhist Thought and Art is the first of its kind in which the author attempted to identify the Jatakas depicted in the panels and paintings noticed in various Buddhist monasteries with the canonical and non-canonical literary works. While doing so, he discovered some Jataka panels, left untouched by earlier scholars. The author has also highlighted the evolutionary stages of the art in sculptured panels and paintings from monoscenic to the sequential continuous narrative mode right from the Bharhut to Amaravati School of Art and its influence as reflected in the paintings at Ajanta and carvings at Kanheri and Aurangabad rock-cut caves. The book gives a vivid picture of the diffusion and distribution of Jataka narratives in the Indian sub-continent. The publication is well supplemented by neat photographs and drawings.
