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The Indian Analyst
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North Indian Inscriptions |
PART B vatthu which the Mahāsamayasutta (D. II, 253 ff.) deals with. This text narrates how the gods approach from all the worlds in order to see the Buddha and the monks and how the Buddha takes this as an opportunity to announce the names of all these gods to the monks. In my opinion this explanation of Hoernle is quite impossible on account of the fact that the scene represented in the relief does not take place in the Mahāvana but in heaven. Nothing hints at a forest. Even the throne does not stand under a tree. It is only surmounted by an umbrella. If, however, the scene of the event is in heaven then the Tushita heaven only can be meant in which the Bodhisattva dwells before his being born in the World[1]. Accordingly also the paṭisaṁdhi of the label can only refer to his future incarnation. It is further impossible that the paṭisaṁdhi is being praised, for sāsati cannot at all mean ‘praise’. sāsati is used in the sense of ‘ to inculcate’, ‘to inform’, ‘to instruct something sāsani is certainly a scribe’s mistake for sāsati; Arahaguto devaputo…. sāsati paṭisaṁdhi(ṁ) therefore can only mean, ‘ the devaputa Arahaguta proclaims the future incarnation’. The genitive bhagavato can be connected with paṭisaṁdhi(ṁ), but with the verb sāsati as well, for verbs in the meaning of ‘to say’ or to inform’ are construed in Sanskrit and in Prakrit very commonly with the genitive. Now we read in the Nidānakathā (J. I. 48) that the goddesses of all ten thousand Chakkavālas having heard of the Buddhahalāhala came together according to a fixed rule in some Chakkavāla and that from there they went to the Bodhisattva in the Tushita heaven and announced to him that the time had arrived for him to become a Buddha for the welfare of the world (tadā pana sabbā pi tā . . . . . . ekachakkavāle sannipatitvā Tusitabhavane Bodhisattassa santikaṁ gantvā so vo dāni kālo mārisa Buddhattāya samayo mārisa Buddhattāyā ti yāchiṁsu). This narration agrees exactly with the relief and the inscription, if we take Arahaguta as the speaker of the gods and connect Bhagavato—as also the order of the words suggests—with sāsati. Then we can translate the whole as above. Vokato apparently is to be read vokkaṁto and corresponds to Sk. vyavakrāntaḥ as Pāli vokkanti to vyavakrānta ; cf. gabbhe vokkantito dukkhaṁ (disvā), Therag. 709. From the term we may gather that Arhadgupta was an inhabitant of one of the celestial abodes above the Tushita heaven. Mahāsāmāyikā is a derivative of mahāsamāya = Pāli mahāsamaya, Sk. mahāsamāja, which denotes the Great Assembly of the gods in the title of the Sūtra mentioned above. It is probably to be taken as the name of the sabhā where the great assembly took place.
It is of importance for judging the connection of the sculptures with the literary tradition that this request of the gods is not mentioned in the Mvu., and it is told in the Lalitav. (p.11 ff.) in quite a different form. Here again the narrow relationship between the sculptures and the Pāli tradition is evident. Whether the personality of Arahaguta, whose name does not occur anywhere in literature, has disappeared in the Ceylonese tradition or whether it has been added in the Indian tradition cannot be decided. In Bhārhut, Arahaguta appears once again in a similar role in the relief which represents the renunciation of the Bodhisattva (B 20). The Nidānakathā (J. I. 64, 1 ff.) only speaks of goddesses accompanying the Bodhisattva, while in the relief one of the figures is marked out by the label as Arahaguto devaputo.[2] B 19 (801); PLATES XVII, XXXV
ON the same pillar as No. A 73, now in the Indian Museum, Calcutta (P 7). Edited
[1]His presence is indicated in the sculpture by the foot-prints on the foot-rest. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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