The Buddhist Tales of India, China, and Japan: Japanese Section contains translations of one hundred and seventy-four stories in the section of China from Konjaku monogatarishu;, the largest story collection in Japan, dating from the early twelfth century. The original work contains more than one thousand tales of India, China, and Japan. The fantastic assortment of characters in the work reminds one of Honore de Balzac's The Human Comedy whose nearly two thousand characters include all types and classes of people. The characters in the Konjaku may exceed this number since they include not only human beings, but also animals, plants, ghosts, spirits and demons, not to mention celestial beings such as Buddhas, bodhisattvas, and other deities which are certainly absent from The Human Comedy.