Karmic Entanglements and Vessantara Jataka Arts: merit, mediation and imagination

The Vessantara Jataka, which tells of the Buddha’s penultimate life, is of particular importance in Thailand where it has been closely tied to popular merit making practices. This paper analyzes the relationship between Vessantara Jataka art and merit making. It compares case studies from three different periods—the nineteenth century, mid 1960s, and today—to argue that both the form of artistic production and the specific artistic details within each piece influence donor-merit relationships, co-opting, incorporating, or displacing community. The pieces present different relationships between narrative time and place, and the time and place of the recitation, which, in turn, inform the kinds of merit and karmic entanglements these artworks generate. Ultimately, this paper argues that close analysis of the visual and material aspects of these Vessantara Jataka ‘texts’ are integral for understanding how they produce merit and for whom.