North Indian Inscriptions

PART B

gives circumstances, and its avoidance would be quite understandable.

   Marshall’s identification is justified by a relief in Bhārhut which has already been taken note of by Waldschmidt^[1]. On the corner pillar of the angular entrance at the Western gate, three reliefs, one below the other, are carved at the right side, Due to the conformity in style and equality of execution, they must have been made by the same artist and stand in some internal connection (cf. Cunningham’s Pl. XVII). The middle relief shows the wellknown ladder in Sāṅkāśya. The upper relief depicts the gathering of gods listening to a sermon of Buddha whose presence is hinted at by a tree and a throne. The two reliefs therefore refer to Buddha’s preaching of law in the Trayastriṁśa heaven and his descent from there. The lower relief shows the same subject as the relief in Sāñchī mentioned above: a mango tree with a stone seat in front of it. It is worshipped by a number of standing persons─altogether twenty─or is being saluted in the wellknown fashion by washing of clothes and touching of mouth. Undoubtedly the miracle of Śrāvastī is meant, which immediately preceded the ascent of the Buddha into the heaven of the Trayastriṁśa gods. Thus the miracle of the mango alone is presented here also; nothing is to be seen of the miracle of fire and water^[2].

   Thus we observe that the typical representation of the miracle of Śrāvastī in the art of Bhārhut and Sāñchī is quite different from what we see in our relief. There is nothing in the sculpture to indicate that subject. In my opinion the panel has to be interpreted in connection with the two adjoining panels of the pillar. Apparently the sculptor intended to allude to the three great events in the life of the Buddha, the sambodhi, the parinirvāṇa and the dharmachakrapravartana, by representing the buildings erected on the sites where they had taken place and their worship by divine and human beings. Just as the Bodhi temple is meant to remind of the enlightenment of the Buddha and the Stūpa of his death, the Dharmaśālā^[3] is a memorial to his preaching^[4]. Like the Bodhi temple and the Stupa with the lion-pillar
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^[1]Buddh. Kunst in Indien, p. 78.
^[2]A parallel is given by the story of the visit of the Buddha to Kapilavastu which is connected with the yamakaprātihārya. In the reliefs in Sāñchī depicting the visit (Northern gate, right pillar, front side, 3rd panel; Eastern gate, right pillar, inner side, 2nd panel) only a chaṅkama is represented in the air on which one has to imagine the Buddha walking. The chaṅkama is made through magic by the Buddha for himself, according to DhA. (III, 163), in order to break the insolence of his relatives. In the Mvu. (III, 114, 7 ff.) it is told more precisely that the Buddha creates the place for walking in the air so that he may not be required to stand up before the Śākyas coming to visit him. In the Nidānakathā (J. I, 88, 17 ff.) the chaṅkama is not expressly mentioned. Here we are told that the Buddha in order to force his relatives to worship him against their will raised himself into the air and performed a pāṭihāriya similar to the yamakapāṭihāriya under the Gaṇḍamba tree. In the Mvu. the Buddha standing in the air performs the yamakaprātihāryāṇi. Two of them are narrated in particular, viz. the wonder of the fire and water and, provided the text has been rightly handed down, the creation of the figure of a bull sometimes in this, sometime in the other region. It is remarkable that here also the wonder of fire and water is mentioned in the first place. Further on the legend, that blind Mahāprajāpati regains her eyesight by the water streaming out on the occasion of the miracle, is combined with the foregoing. The different miracles attributed to the Buddha on this occasions in the Buddhach, are already mentioned above (p. 115). One gains the impression that the legend originally mentioned only a place of walking, created by magic in the air by the Buddha, in order to raise himself above the Śākyas. The yamakaprātihārya seems to have been added to it from the legend having its origin in Śrāvastī. The sculptures at Sāñchī in any case suit with this interpretation, even though they cannot be looked upon as proofs. The yamakaprātihārya, even when it may have been a part of the legend at the time of the production of our reliefs, could not be shown on account of the fact that any personal representation of the Buddha was avoided in sculptures.
^[3]Cunningham, StBh. p. 90 f., 119. wanted to connect the edifice with the dhārmaśālā or, as he calls it, the puṇyaśālā of Prasenajit. Barua, Barh. II, p. 48, takes the relief to be an illustration of the Dhammachetiya-Sutta (M. II, 118 ff.) which, according to my opinion, is unfounded. In any case, the opinion of Barua that the two figures at the side of the wheel represent the king twice, once to the left as worshipping, and once to the right as retreating, is erroneous.
^[4]Cf. note 1 on p. 102.