North Indian Inscriptions

PART B

(prathamakalpika), which perfectly agrees with the result arrived at from an examination of the sculpture. It should be noted that the difference between the sculpture and the Jātaka extends, not to the Gāthās, but only to the prose narrative which in many cases has been proved to deviate from the original tale.

B 46 (703); PLATES, XX, XLII

ON a coping stone, now in the Indian Museum, Calcutta (A 102). Edited by Cunningham, PASB. 1874, p. 115; Cunningham, StBh. (1879) p. 75; 131, No. 14, and Pl. XLVI and LIII; Hultzsch, ɀDMG. Vol. XL (1886), p. 61, No. 14, and Pl.; Warren, Two Bas-Reliefs of the Stupa of Bharhut (1890), p. 14 ff.; Hultzsch, IA. Vol. XXI (1892), p. 228, No. 14; Barua-Sinha, BI. (1926), p. 89, No. 208; Barua, Barh. Vol. II (1934), p. 127 ff., and Vol. III (1937), Pl. LXXXIII (121); Lüders, Bhārh. (1941), p. 153.

TEXT:
Udajataka^[1]

TRANSLATION:
The Jātaka of the otters.

   The sculpture to which the label belongs was first identified by Hultzsch with the Dabbhapupphajātaka, No. 400 of the Pāli Jātaka book. It is the humorous story of two otters who, having caught a large rohita fish by united effort, begin to quarrel about the division of their prey. They ask a jackal to make an equal division of the fish. The jackal awards the tail to one of the otters, the head to the other and takes the middle portion for himself as arbiter’s fee and brings it to his wife who has manifested a longing for fresh fish. The Bodhisattva is said to have been a tree-spirit at that time who witnessed the event.

    The sculpture shows two otters and a jackal between them on the rocky bank of a river in which two fish are visible. The tail and the head of a fish are lying on the ground before the otters. On the right the jackal is seen trotting off with the middle portion of the fish in his mouth. On the left before two trees an ascetic is seated with a water-vessel and a basket filled up to the top before him. It appears that the sculptor did not know the version of the story as it is given in the prose account of the Pāli Jātaka and that in the version known to him the part played by the tree-spirit was assigned to an ascetic living by the river bank. Probably in the month of this ascetic the last Gāthā containing the moral was originally put.^[2]

B 47 (730); PLATES XIII, XLI

ON the same pillar as No. A 98, and immediately below that inscription, now in the Indian Museum, Calcutta (P 14). Edited by Cunningham, PASB. 1874, p. 111; StBh. (1879), p. 51 f.; 133, No. 19, and Pl. XXV and LIII; Hultzsch, ɀDMG. Vol. XL (1886), p. 64, No. 37 (second part), and Pl.; IA. Vol. XXI (1892), p. 226; 230, No. 37 (second part); Barua-Sinha, BI. (1926), p. 91, No. 212; Barua, Barh, Vol. II (1934), p. 136 ff., and Vol. III (1937), Pl. LXXXV (126); Lüders, Bharh. (1941), p. 133.
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^[1]The ā-sign of jā is quite distinct.
^[2]The author of the prose apparently forgot the purpose of the presence of the tree-spirit and calls the last stanza an Abhisambuddhagāthā. In the Tibetan version of the story (Schiefner, Tib. Tales, p. 332 ff.) which is very much deteriorated, the witness of the event has totally disappeared.