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The Indian Analyst
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North Indian Inscriptions |
PART B It is also no deviation if the man who warms the Brahmin about the ram is represented in the relief as a well-dressed man standing upright, whereas, according to the prose, he is a merchant sitting in his shop; for in the Gathas nothing is said regarding this person. The representation of the Mahābodhij. (528) (Pl. XVII 14) exactly tallies with the course of narration to be concluded from the Gāthās 1-3. The dog has heard the conversation of the king with his wife, by which it knows that the affection of the king for the ascetic has disappeared. It therefore barks at him and shows him its teeth, whereas in the prose narration the dog appears as a warner of the ascetic under total distortion of the original sense. In the Mahākapij. (407) only a slight difference between the relief on Pl. XXXIII 4 and the Gāthās is to be observed. According to G. 3 the monkey-king fastens the cane to his hind-feet (aparapādesu daṭhaṁ baddhalatāguṇaṁ)[1], on which the apes have to cross from one tree to another. In the relief the cane is fastened to its right hind-leg. The deviation is too insignificant to lead to the conclusion that the artist was following a different version. All the other deviations from the Pāli Jātaka only refer to the prose-narration. According to the prose-narration, the king gets the ape-king down from the tree by means of a scaffolding which he got erected on the raft in the Gaṅgā. In the relief, two men are spreading a cloth in order to catch up the monkey, as is likewise narrated in the Jātakamālā (paṭavitānaṁ vitatya 179, 1). The prose narrates that the exhausted ape-king is laid on a bed covered with a skin moistened with oil. In the relief he sits in conversation with the king on a caneseat (mōṛhā) as the king himself does. Nothing of this kind is said in the Gāthās. Without hesitation, we may take the version of the story followed by the sculptor as the older one, the more so as the Bhārhut relief is in agreement in these points with[2] the representation of the Jātaka on the Western gate of stūpa I in Sāñchī[3]. Other cases of supposed discrepancies between the Pāli¬ Jātaka story and the sculptural representation likewise turn out to refer to the prose-narration ; see the treatment of No. B 45, B 46, B 49, B 57, and B 59.
What applies to the representations of the Jātakas also applies to the scenes from the life of the Buddha. We have to keep in mind that here also only deviations from the canonical texts can prove the use of a collection different from the Pāli Tipiṭaka. What appears in the later commentary literature is the form which the legends took in Ceylon in the 5th cent. A.D., and it is indeed quite possible that they were narrated differently on Indian soil even in the school of the Theras.
Now in Bharhut only two stories are represented, which are handed down in the
Suttas, viz. the visit Ajātasattu and the visit of Sakka in the Indasālaguhā, which are treated
below under B 40 and B 35. Both the representations do not contain anything which is
[1]According to the prose, to his hip (ekaṁ attano kaṭiyaṁ bandhitvā III, 372, 5). Āryaśūra in the
Jātakamālā follows in this point more exactly the text of the Gāthā (vetralatayā gāḍham ābadhya charaṇau 178, 10). In the rest, however, he deviates from the Pāli prose-narration and from the sculpture. The
Bodhisattva stretches not across the river, but across the space between the tree and a mountain in the
vicinity, and he does not cut off the cane and fasten it on to another tree, but leaves it rooted in the
ground. The text of the Gāthās can be reconciled with both the versions. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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