The stories of the Buddha and the Bodhisattas at one stage were extremely popular in Indonesia as well as is exemplified in the first 135 sculptures of Balushade (top series) in the first gallery of Borobudur temple in Java are based on the stories of the Jatakas.

Besides, the countries like Thailand, Myanmar and Sri Lanka still have a living tradition of narrating the stories of the Buddha by way of mural and other paintings in the monasteries. But it is unfortunate to recall the destruction of myriad paintings or pictorial stories in the sculpted niches in Afghanistan, particularly in Bamiyan.

Some of these paintings and like remnants are now being preserved in Switzerland in a proposed museum. But such losses are irretrievable in the history of human civilisations.

The Number of the Jataka Stories
To determine the actual number of the Jatakas is, however, a matter of controversy. According to the Niddesa, a book of the Khuddakanikaya (generally, ascribed to Sariputta and Mahakacchana) the total number of the Jatakas is 500.

The Fausboll's edition contains 547 Jatakas; or the Jataka tales.