North Indian Inscriptions

PART B

  he is not the Bhagavat, but only a śrāvaka. They all should cry with one voice ‘namo Buddhasya !’ They do it. When Timitimiṅgila hears the name of the Buddha it remembers that at a time, lying indefinitely back, when it was the Brahmin Meghadatta, it had heard of Buddha Dīpaṁkara from his friend Megha^[1]. The further continuation of the story is the same as in the other versions. When the gigantic fish starves itself to death, it is reborn as Dharmaruchi.

   The version of the Mvu. is influenced, as already observed by Senart, by a similar story known from the Pūrṇāvadāna in the Divy. (24, 9 ff.). The rich merchant Bhava in Śūrpāraka has four sons Bhavila, Bhavatrāta, Bhavanandin and Pūrṇa. The first three, born of a wife of equal rank, are fond of adorning themselves richly. When the father reproaches them for their extravagance, they do away with the jewels they wear as ear-recoration, and put on in succession an ear-decoration made of wood, of stave^[2], and tin, with the vow not to wear again the ear-decoration of precious stones as long as they have not earned 100,000 pieces of gold. Since that time they are called Dārukarṇin, Stavakarṇin and Trapukarṇin. Pūrṇa, born of a slave girl married by the merchant, remains a bachelor, enters the Buddhist order, and lives as a monk in the country of the Śroṇāparāntakas. Later on Dārukarṇin goes on an expedition with a party of other merchants in order to bring the Gośīrsha-sandalwood. The Yaksha Maheśvara, to whom the forest of sandal trees belongs, raises a storm. The merchants in their distress appeal to all the gods. Dārukarṇin alone does not take part in the general excitement. When asked he explains to his companions that he is remembering with repentance his brother Pūrṇa, who had warned him against the sea-voyage.

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On hearing this, the merchants shout with one voice: ‘Adoration to the venerable Pūrṇa’! A goddess informs Pūrṇa that his brother is remembering him in distress. Pūrṇa meditates and appears sitting crosslegged in the air above the ship. The storm ends. Maheśvara asks Pūrṇa about the explanation of the miracle, and when he is informed in the course of the conversation that a Buddha has appeared in the world he keeps quiet. The merchants are able to return home to Śūrpāraka with their load of sandal. There Pūrṇa builds the palace of sandalwood, called the Chandanamāla, for the Buddha. Furthermore it is narrated how the Buddha, journeying through the air, visits Śūrpāraka and is received solemnly in that palace by the king and his four brothers. Aśvaghosha must have known a version of the Avadāna in which Stavakarṇin, and not Dārukarṇin, was mentioned as the head of the merchants, and also he, and not Pūrṇa, as the one responsible for the building of the palace of sandalwood. In the Buddhacharita 21, 22 f. it is said in the list of the conversion by the Buddha, according to Johnston’s translation: “Then He went by His magic powers to the city of Śūrpāraka and in due course instructed the merchant Stavakarṇin^[3], who, on being instructed, became so faithful that he started to build for the Best of seers a sandalwood Vihāra, which was ever odorous and touched the sky”. From this version of the Pūrṇāvadāna obviously is taken the name Thapakarṇi or Sthapakarṇika, as well as the intervention of Pūrṇaka in the story of Timitimiṅgila of the Mvu.

  In the medallion one sees the giant fish into whose throat the ship occupied by three persons is sliding in. other fish, shown with their heads down, suggest that the whirlpool is attracting the ship. Above, the ship^[4] appears a second time, as it is bound homewards
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^[1]In the Divy., Meghadatta appears with the name Mati, Megha with the name Sumati.
^[2]The meaning of stave is not known. Burnouf may be right when he translates it as ‘lac’.
^[3]According to Johnston, AO. XV, p. 291: Tib. sna stod, apparently error for rna stod.
^[4]The artist, however, depicted only one boat. What Foucher, p. 43, would like to explain as ropes with rings for keeping the boat in the state of balance are surely, as Cunningham has already remarked, p. 124, rudders. It is doubtful whether the details in the sketch are exactly reproduced.