North Indian Inscriptions

PART B

TEXT:
migajātakaṁ^[1]

TRANSLATION:
The Jātaka of the deer.

   The sculpture to which the label belongs has been identified by Hultzsch^[2] with the Rurujātaka, No. 482 of the Pāli collection. The story belongs to the class of tales of the virtuous animals and the ungrateful men. A young spendthrift casts himself into the Ganges to drown himself, but is saved by the Bodhisattva, who at that time was a gold-coloured ruru deer. He carries him on his back out of the water and sets him after some days on the road to Benares, asking him at the same time not to disclose his haunt. The queen of Benares has dreamt of a golden deer and longs to see it. After being informed by the brahmins that there are really golden deer, the king offers a large reward to anybody who will bring him news of such a creature. Instigated by his greediness, the wretched young fellow shows the king and his followers the way to the dwelling place of the deer. The king is ready to discharge an arrow, when the deer addresses him and reveals the perfidy of the traitor. At the request of the deer the king pardons the wretch and grants a boon of inviolability to all creatures.

    In the medallion three stages of the story are represented. In the lower part the deer is seen swimming in the stream with the man on his back. A doe drinking from the water serves no other purpose but to fill a blank space. In the centre of the upper part, where three trees indicate that the scene is in a forest, the large deer is quietly lying on the ground, while four female deer are running away in fear of the king who has pulled his bow and is on the point of shooting his arrow at the deer which is pointed out to him by the traitor standing by his side. In front of the deer the king appears once more, attended by two men, probably the treacherous young man and a servant. The attitude of the king, who stands with his hands folded in devotion, shows that here he is represented as conversing with the deer and paying his respects to him for his magnanimous behaviour.

    In agreement with the Gāthās, where the deer is called a ruru deer, the title of the Pāli Jātaka is Rurujātaka, while in the label it is called migajātaka. I do not know which species of the deer family was denoted by ruru^[3]; the animal represented in the sculpture is certainly neither an antelope nor a gazelle, but, as shown by the antlers, a stag, probably a sambar.

B 48 (698); PLATES XX, XLVII

ON coping-stone No. IV, now in the Indian Museum, Calcutta. Edited by Cunningham, PASB. 1874, p. 115; Cunningham, StBh. (1879), p. 75; 131, No. 9, and Pl. XLIII and LIII; Hoernle, IA. Vol. X (1881), p. 118, Note 2; Hultzsch, ɀDMG. Vol. XL (1886), p. 61, No. 10, and Pl.; IA. Vol. XXI (1892), p. 228, No. 10; Barua-Sinha, BI. (1926), p. 80, No. 190; Barua, Barh. Vol. II (1934), p. 85 ff., and Vol. III (1937), Pl. LXX (88); Lüders, Bhārh. (1941), p. 134.
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^[1]The sign for the anusvāra has not come out on the estampage, but it can be clearly seen in the photograph.
^[2]Again by Huber, BEFEO. Tome IV (1904), p. 1093.
^[3]In Vaij. 66, 27 it is said to be a large black buck (mahān kṛishṇasāraḥ), but no such animal exists in Indian.