North Indian Inscriptions

PART B

TEXT:
tiramitimigilakuchhimha Vasuguto māchito Mahadevānaṁ
(timitimiṁgilakuchchhimhā Vasugutto mochito Mahādevena)

TRANSLATION:

  Vasuguta (Vasugupta) rescued by Mahādeva from the belly of the sea-monster (timitimiṁgila). Chavannes^[1] identified the scene represented with a story in the Tsa-p’i-yu-king. Foucher^[2] showed the story also to be in the Divyāvadāna and the Mahāvastu and it appears, as Barua and Sinha^[3] have noted, as well in Kshemendra’s Bodhisattvadanakalpalata

   The Chinese version is the shortest and the most simple. Five hundred merchants start on a sea-voyage. The ship comes near a giant fish which swallows the waves together with all living animals contained in them. With an irresistible force the ship also is drawn into the throat of the gigantic fish. In vain the merchants pray to the different gods, whom they worship. Then the captain of the boat (sa-po=sārthavāha) says to them that he known of a great god called Buddha. They should pray to him in place of other gods. There-upon all the merchants together shout ‘namo Buddhāya’. In this way the fish learns that a Buddha has again appeared in the world. It realized that it would be improper to do any harm to the living beings. It therefore shuts the mouth so that the water begins to flow back and the ship is saved. The fish really has been a monk in its former birth. The name of the Buddha reminds it of its former existence and this led it to the decision to spare the life of the beings.

  In the Divy. the story forms an introduction to the Dharmaruchyavadāna (228, 21 ff.). The monk Dharmaruchi was a giant fish in his former birth. The story points in essence to only one variation. Here the Buddha himself joins in the action to some extent. As the merchants, on the advice of some upāsaka, shout ‘namo Buddhāya’, the Buddha, who stays in the Jetavana, hears the call with his divine ear and arranges that the giant fish, Timiṅgila or Timitimiṅgila, also hears it. The reference to Timiṅgila’s formerly being a monk is missing in the story itself. But in the second part of the Avadāna, where the different former existences of Dharmaruchi are narrated in details, it is described that he was a monk in the time of the Buddha Dīpaṁkara as well as in the time of the Buddha Krakuchchhanda. And at the end of this story it is mentioned of him that on hearing the word Buddha in later times he would remember his former births.

   It is unnecessary to narrate in detail the story in the Bodhisattvāvadānakalpalatā, because the Dharmaruchyavadāna (No. 89) is only a metrical version of the Avadāna in the Divy., having the same title and keeping close to the original.

   In the Mvu. (I, 244, 19 ff.) the story of the giant fish is likewise connected with the Dharmaruchi legend, but it shows a few peculiar features. The head of the five hundred merchants here bears the name Thapakarṇi or Sthapakarṇika^[4] At the moment when the merchants call the different gods, the venerable Pūrṇaka observes it. He flies up from the Tuṇḍaturika mountain and appears in the air above the ship. The merchants cry: ‘Bhagavan, Bhagavan, we take refuge with you’! But the Sthavira answers them that
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^[1]Contes I, p. XII, II, p. 51 ff.
^[2]Mémoires concernant l’ Asie Orientale, T. III, p. 8.
^[3]BI. p. 61 f.
^[4]Variations Thapakarṇika, Sthāpakarṇika, Sthapakaṇḍika.