North Indian Inscriptions

PART B

the Dharmaśālā is to be taken as a historical building, which, as Hūan-tsang tells us^[1], was erected by king Prasenajit for the Buddha in the city of Śrāvastī. To leave no doubt about the identity of the building the sculpture added the pradakshiṇā procession of the king^[2], which at the same time illustrates the worship of the place by men, while the two large figures inside the building are gods revering the wheel like the two gods revering the tree is the corresponding relief of the Bodhi.

B 40 (774); PLATES XIX, XXXIX

ON the left outer face of the same pillar as No. A 59, now in the Indian Museum, Calcutta (P 3). The inscription is engraved on the lowest relief. Edited by Cunningham, PASB. 1874, p. 112; StBh. (1879), p. 90; 136, No. 63, and Pl. XVI and LIV; Hoernale, IA. Vol. XI (1882)Ś, p. 27, No. 22; Hultzsch, ɀDMG. Vol. XL (1886), p. 68, No. 77, and Pl.; IA. Vol. XXI (1892), p. 233, No. 77; Barua-Sinha, BI. (1926), p. 63 f., No. 167; Barua, Barh. Vol. II (1934), p. 42 ff., and Vol. III (1937), Pl. XLIX (51); Lūders, Bhārh. (1941), p. 164.

TEXT:
A[ja]tasat[u]^[3] bhagavato vaṁdate

TRANSLATION:
Ajatasatu(Ajātaśatru) worships the Holy One.

   The story represented in the sculpture is related in the Sāmaññaphalasutta (D.I., 47 ff.). In a beautiful moonlit night King Ajātasttu of Magadha, on the advice of the physician Jīvaka, makes up his mind to pay a visit to the Buddha. He orders Jīvaka to get his state-elephant ready, together with five-hundred she-elephants for his women and sets forth is royal pomp from the city of Rājagaha to Jīvaka’s Mango Grove, where the Buddha is staying. Arriving at the entrance of the grove, the king dismounts and walks on foot to the door of the hall in which the lamps are burring. Buddha, who is sitting there amidst the monks, is pointed out to the king by Jīvaka. The king bows to the Holy One and, having taken his sex aside, asks him about the advantage to be derived from the life of a recluse. When the Buddha has answered his questions, the king takes the vow of a lay-disciple and confesses the great sin of his life, the murder of his father.

    The sculpture conforms to the story in every detail. In the lower part the king is seen sitting on his state-elephant with a female attendant bearing the parasol behind him. To his right there are two more elephants mounted by two women. They have much smaller tusks than the elephant of the king, apparently to show that they are she-elephants
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^[1]Beal, Vol. II, p. 2.
^[2]The particulars have been explained by Foucher in the description of his Pl. XXVIII. He mentions that of the carriage coming forth from the gate in the right lower side of the picture, nothing more is to be seen than the heads of both the horses and of the charioteer. This has to be rectified. The feet of the horses are quite clearly to be seen in the photograph of the lower relief. The artist has gone beyond here as well as in the Bodha-relief (B 23) of the same pillar, the rail forming the frame for his representation. It is impossible that this two-horsed carriage is identical with the four-horsed carriage of the king. The artists apparently added a second carriage to the carriage of the king and introduced two pedestrians, two riders on horse-back, and two elephants in order to indicate the procession. I am not quite sure, whether the door is meant to be the gate of the royal palace or of the town. It could also mean the entrance gate to the district of the sanctuary.
^[3]The u-sign is indicated only by a very slight elongation of the right bar of the ta. Hultzsch read Ajātasata.