Transformative Narratives of Filial Piety: Cultural Adaptation and Moral Agency in the Śyāma Jātaka

In this paper, I use Paul Ricœur's philosophical framework to explore how the Śyāma Jātaka and its cultural adaptations establish filial piety as the basis for moral development. Comparing narratives from India to China, I show how Ricœur's concepts of moral indebtedness, narrative identity, and the pursuit of the good for and with others help explain the ethical message of these Buddhist tales. This paper explores how the evolution from the nameless ascetic in the Rāmāyaṇa to the eponymous Śyāma or Sanzi in Buddhist texts embodies the transition from subject to moral actor, with what Ricœur calls “ipseity” – selfhood formed through narrative. I claim that Ricœur's concept of the truth invocation scenes where filial piety triumphs over death represents “pietas” that “joins the living and the dead,” and how narrative concordant discordance fosters moral change across cultural divides.