Animal Fables
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. Instead of populating these stories with people, they cast the animals of their immediate environment in the leading roles—which may have given the tales a universal appeal that helped them travel around the world, surfacing in the Middle East as Aesop’s fables and in various other guises throughout East and Southeast Asia, Africa, Russia, and Europe.
The Buddhist Education Committee presents a selection of movies that center around animals and are in effect modern animal fables. We’ll discuss the intriguing possibilities of Buddhist themes emerging in these stories after each screening.
The movies are:
| Movie | Date | |
|---|---|---|
| White Dog | March 23 | |
| Au Hasard Bathasar | March 30 | |
| The Birds | April 13 | |
| The Adventures of Milo and Otis | April 20 | |
Screenings, along with a discussion, will begin 7:00pm at VHBT.
Admission: $5 per film, or $15 for a four-film pass (available at the screenings)