From the Deer to the Monkey: how the transmission of the Jātaka animal stories to medieval China enriched Chinese culture and complemented Confucianism

Abstract

ABSTRACT In contrast with Chinese literary tradition and Confucianism, there was a multitude of animals and birds in the Jātaka stories, which had yet to be researched as a reference point of Confucianism. Because of Buddhism’s opposition to the use of animals as a sacrifice, its rejection of consuming animal meat, and because animals were considered as a state of the former existence of Śākyamuni Buddha, Buddhist literature gives ample room to animal images as full-fledged main characters and moral agents. A careful analysis of the use of herbivores such as deer, turtles, wild geese, and monkeys as a narrative device in the Jātaka stories demonstrates that personified animals served as a source of inspiration for humans. Turning animals into articulate moral agents render them no longer the object of human sympathy as in Confucianism nor metaphors in philosophical Daoism, but intellectually equal and ethically superior to humans. The Buddhist idea of cherishing all sentient beings was not merely based on compassion but also an egalitarian perspective that acknowledges animals’ subjectivity as autonomous emotional-moral agents. This unique dimension of Buddhism complemented the Confucian anthropocentric worldview and enriched Chinese literature and art.