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The Indian Analyst
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North Indian Inscriptions |
PART B agrees best with the Pāli version. According to it the Nāga has met with his existence by his bad conduct in a previous birth. At the time of the Buddha Kassapa, when he was a young monk, he broke a leaf of an eraka tree by inadvertence, and failing to confess his offence, he has been reborn in the Gaṅgā as a huge serpent king called Erakapatta. He is anxiously awaiting the appearance of the next Buddha, and to ascertain when this happy event will take place, he teaches his daughter a Gāthā containing questions which nobody but a Buddha can answer. Every fortnight he makes her dance on his hood and sing that Gāthā, and as he has promised both his daughter and his wealth to the man who will be able to answer the questions, many men try to win the maiden during the long interval between the two Buddhas, but in vain. When the Buddha, sitting under one of seven Śirīsha trees not far from Benares, beholds the young Brahmin Uttara, who has made up his mind to compete for the prize, he teaches him the right answers. The Nāga king realizes that a new Buddha has arisen in the world. Filled with joy, he lashes the waters with his tail so that banks of the river are washed away. He is then conducted by Uttara to the Buddha who comforts him by a sermon. The relief shows three different stages of the story. In the upper part Erapatta emerges from the Gaṅgā as a five-headed snake. His daughter stands on his hood, and on her left side the young Brahman Uttara rises from the water. Her gesture indicates that she is talking to him, and he is offering her a lotus-flower. In the right corner below, separated from the river by a strip of land, there is another sheet of water which is probably meant to represent the inundation caused by the Nāga. Here Erapatta is seen on his way to the Buddha. This time he is in human form, but carrying a five-headed snake over his head-dress. He is followed by two females who are characterized as Nāga girls by a single headed snake on their heads. The left side of the relief is filled by the last scene where Erapatta, again in human form, is kneeling before the invisible Buddha sitting on a stone seat beneath a tree which may be a Śirīsha tree[1]. Five more trees are figured on the banks of the Gaṅgā and the water-sheet. They probably represent the rest of the trees mentioned in the text, although their numbers do not exactly agree.
All persons and events mentioned in the Pāli text, which in the other version partly do
not occur at all, are represented in the relief, for instance, the young Brahmin Uttara, the
daughter standing on the head of the Nāga, the Śirīsha trees and probably even the inundation caused by the Nāga. The material deviations are very small. Instead of the seven
Śirīsha trees only six are depicted and nothing is said in the Pāli texts[2] of the two Nāga
girls accompanying the Nāga king on his way to the Buddha. The only real difference lies
in the name of the Nāga, Erapata in the label of the relief, Erakapatta in the commentary. But
this too is of no importance. I fully agree with Vogel, Indian Serpent Lore, p. 207 ff.,
when he explains the different forms of the name of the Nāga king as resulting from the sensesuggesting distortions of Airāvata. Airāvata occurs as an epithet of the Sarpa Dhṛitarāshṭra
already in the AV. 8, 10, 29 and the Pañchaviṁśabrāmaṇa 25, 15, 3. The Nāga Airāvata
is also often mentioned in the epic[3]. An old secondary form of the name is Airāvaṇa which
appears in Pāli as Erāvana or Erāvaṇa. In the Mahāsamayasutta (D. II, 258) the Mahanāga
Erāvaṇa[4] is mentioned in the list of Nāgas. In the Dhammikasutta of the Sn. the upasaka
[1]The characteristic features of the Śirīsha tree are better brought out in the medallion described
under No. B 15. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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