Early Buddhist councils stitched these animal-fable adventures into the Khuddaka Nikāya of the Pāli Canon, turning a rich oral tradition into a single collection. Monks recited the Bodhisatta’s past-life exploits during gatherings held in the generations after the Buddha’s passing (around the 5th–4th century BCE), with chief disciples said to have helped gather stories from village shrines and forest retreats.

Centuries of faithful storytelling kept the Jātaka afloat until a landmark moment in Sri Lanka. Around 29 BCE, under King Vattagamani’s patronage, the Pāli Canon—including the Jātaka collection—was inscribed on palm leaves at the Alu Vihāra monastery. Scribes worked “once and for all” to preserve what had survived wars, famines and the ebb and flow of dynasties.

That written record has stood the test of time, inspiring everything from 21st-century animated shorts in Thailand’s booming edutainment scene to mindfulness apps quoting the Buddha’s earliest lessons in compassion and generosity. Today’s renewed interest in ancient wisdom—for instance, the recent BBC feature on Buddhist storytelling—shows how these 547 tales still resonate, a veritable treasure trove of moral imagination passed down through more than two millennia.