Talk:The Spider's Thread

Real origin

This page is presented confusingly and, since it is Wikipedia's only source about some story like this, seems to imply to the casual reader that this modern author invented this classic Buddhist parable. I intend to rectify this situation soon (not sure how long it will take me to get around to it, therefore I leave this talk page message as a note to myself and notice to other interested editors). This page will remain largely untouched, I think, I mostly just need to make more pages on the actual topics and link to them. Dingolover6969 (talk) 08:54, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Here are the links I currently have collected on this subject:

https://web.archive.org/web/20160331140237/http://www1.edogawa-u.ac.jp/~tmkelly/research_spider.html#rendnote15

https://archive.org/details/karmaastorybudd01carugoog/page/n40/mode/2up

https://archive.org/details/Karma_A_Story_Of_Early_Buddhism/page/n17/mode/2up

https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Index:Crane_Italian_Popular_Tales.djvu

https://cir.nii.ac.jp/crid/1050564287545140736?lang=en

https://iamnotmakingthisup.net/5663/saint-peters-mom-bless-her-heart/

I don't expect these to be very useful yet, but, ars longa! And at least they will be here when I get back to this topic, or if somebody else wants to take charge of this topic without me. Dingolover6969 (talk) 04:06, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

I have taken a stab at making this page at least represent the prior art of the story better. It is tough because our only source is Timothy M. Kelly, and he doesn't know the real plot from Carus nor Saint Peter's Mother. We probably have enough RS for pages on "The Spider Web" (Carus's) (not "The Spider's Thread", mind you) and Saint Peter's Mother. I'm not so convinced we have enough RS for this page, but it's against my philosophy of wikiing to nom it for deletion.

I don't know if this and Carus's The Spider Web are both based on a pre-existing buddhist folk tale or if "The Spider's Thread" is based on Carus's The Spider Web which was based on no similar pre-existing buddhist folk tale. https://cir.nii.ac.jp/crid/1050564287545140736?lang=en claims it is a pre-existing buddhist folk tale motif, but he seems to mean something vague like "the buddha visits hell". So despite being a crucial piece of evidence I actually don't buy his thesis that it isn't based on Saint Peter's Mother. Dingolover6969 (talk) 05:18, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Update: I'm wrapping up my interest in this project. The page now mentions Paul Carus's story and Saint Peter's Mother. If anyone is interested in making pages for those (currently redlinks) given the literature we have (such as the above) and other literature that might be out there, go right ahead. If there's a classic Buddhist parable pre-Carus along these lines maybe someone will find it. This page is still shoddily sourced but it's the best I could do. Dingolover6969 (talk) 19:49, 12 June 2026 (UTC)