This study examines how moral and ideological meanings are visually constructed and reinterpreted across three representations of the Jātaka Tales and the Indonesian mouse-deer (Kancil) narratives: (1) a ninth-century relief at Sojiwan Temple in Central Java, (2) Babbit’s English adaptation of the Jātaka Tales and (3) the 2002 Kancil folktales published by Indonesia’s Ministry of Education. Using Kress and van Leeuwen’s multimodal visual grammar, the analysis traces the historical transformation of Buddhist moral fables into local folklore and their contemporary reformulation within national educational discourse. The findings show that while the Sojiwan relief and Babbit’s edition convey Buddhist and colonial pedagogical values through symbolic simplicity, the 2002 version reimagines Kancil as an empathetic, autonomous figure aligned with postcolonial child-centered ideals. By situating these multimodal shifts within a continuum of cultural adaptation – from ancient temple reliefs to modern children’s illustration – the study highlights how visual storytelling mediates moral and ideological meanings across time. The research contributes to multimodal discourse and children’s literature studies by demonstrating how visual forms sustain and transform ethical worldviews within changing sociocultural contexts.
Nurhayani et al. (Wed,) studied this question.