North Indian Inscriptions

PART B

  I am going to show below in the discussion of No. B 39, pp. 113-118 that the three upper reliefs of the Pasenaji-pillar refer to the bodhi (cf. B 23), the parinirvāṇa and the dharmachakrapravartana (cf. B 39) by representing their sites and their worship by gods and men. We should except to find an allusion also to the fourth incident generally associated with them, the jāti. As in the upper row there was no room for a fourth panel, any scene referring to the jāti had to be placed beneath one of the other reliefs. Now the dance of the Apsaras represented below the bodhi relief is certainly meant to celebrate some happy event in the life of the Buddha, as among all the gods who watch it Māra alone is filled with grief and sorrow. The dance is a mimical performance in which a child takes part and the chief actress appears in the guise of a man. Taking all things together, there can be little doubt, I think, that the play acted by the heavenly ballet is the nativity of the Bodhisattva, in which, Śuddhodana and the infant Bodhisattva himself come on the stage^[1]. Probably miracle-plays of this sort were customary at Buddhist festivals and therefore ascribed also to the inhabitants of the heavenly worlds. But associating the relief with the festival celebrating the birth of the Bodhisattva, the figure of the mourning Māra mentioned in the remarks on B 26 finds its full explanation. Aśvaghosha also does not forget to mention this fact in his narration of the birth of the Bodhisattva. After having spoken of the music of joy of the gods in the sky, he goes on to say: Kāmadeva alone did not feel joy when the highest amongst the liberated of the world was born^[2]. So the relief, as it seems to me, fits in very well with the row of pictures on the pillar.

B 28 (744); PLATE XVIII

ON the lowest relief of the outer face of the same pillar as No. A 62, now in the Indian Museum, Calcutta (P 29). The inscription is engraved on the right-hand pillar forming the border of the relief. Edited by Cunningham, PASB. 1874, p. 115; StBh. (1879), p. 29; 134, No. 33, and Pl. XV and LIV; Hoernle, IA. Vol. X (1881), p. 258, No. 15a, and Pl.; Hultzsch, ɀDMG., Vol. XL (1886), p. 66, No. 51, and Pl; IA. Vol. XXI (1892), p. 231, No. 51; Barua-Sinha, BI. (1926), p. 48 ff., No. 148 ; Barua, Barh, Vol. II (1934), p. 9 ff., and Vol. III (1937), p. 1 ff. and Pl. XXXIX (34) ; Lūders, Bhārh. (1941), p. 57.

TEXT:
Misakosi^[3] achhara

TRANSLATION:
The Apsaras Misakosi (Misrakesi).

[B 27-31 refer to one the same sculpture.]
See the remarks on No. B 31.

B 29 (745) ; PLATE XVIII

ON the lowest relief of the outer face of the same pillar as No. A 62, now in the Indian
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^[1]This explanation of the relief─ingenious as it is─will possibly not convince the general reader. The heavenly ballet may be only celebrating the attainment of the bodhi symbolised by the building round the Bodhi tree which is depicted in the upper relief of the pillar (B 23). That the lower reliefs may have some connection with the upper one is indicated by the fact that the shaft of the pillar standing to the right of the building round the Bodhi tree is prolonged downwards into the middle panel, as mentioned on p. 95. Besides, the memorial of the Buddha’s preaching in Śrāvastī (B 39), taken by Lüders as referring to the dharmachakravartana (see p. 117), is not a memorial of the first preaching of the law, representations of which are generally associated with those of the bodhi and the parinirvāṇa. Ed.
^[2]Buddhacharita, I 27, See Weller’s edition of the Tibetan text.
^[3]Read Misakesi.