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PART B
with the coins which by their square form and the symbols they bear are shown to be punchmarked kahāpaṇas. In the centre Anāthapiṇḍika is seen again, pouring out the water of
donation from a bhiṁkāra on the hand of the unseen Buddha. On the opposite side six well.
dressed male persons stand, the foremost among them with his hands reverentially joined,
while another is waving his garment and a third one expresses his approval in the typical
fashion by whistling. They are probably the seṭṭhis whom Anāthapiṇḍika has invited to take
part in the inauguration festival. The most conspicuous person may be prince Jeta, although he is not mentioned in the Nidānakathā, but it is not quite impossible that he is meant
again for Anāthapiṇḍika and that the scene represents the reception of the Buddha by the
merchant at the head of his followers.
Besides, the medallion shows two buildings on the left side, which according to separate
labels (B 33, B 34) are the Kosambakuṭi and the Gandhakuṭi. In the left lower part at the
side of the Kosambakuṭi a mango tree loaded with fruit is to be seen. The block at the foot
of the tree can scarcely represent anything but a stone seat, and the railing depicted in
front of it is certainly meant as a fence for the tree[1]. It seems to me scarcely probable that
this mango tree which has got such a prominent place in the sculpture is only representing
the mango trees which were spared when, according to a modern version of the legend, the
trees in the park were cut down
[2]. I should rather believe that Cunningham[3] was right
when he identified it with the
Gaṇḍamba tree in the legend of the great miracle of Śrāvastī,
which the Buddha by his supernatural power made grow up from the kernel of a mango
fruit before the eyes of a large crowd at Śrāvastī. This indeed does not exactly agree with
the statement of the text according to which the miracle took place in ‘front of the gate of
Śrāvastī[4]’ or ‘between the Jetavana and Śrāvastī’[5]. Now we are told by Hüan-tsang that
60 or 70 feet to the east of the Saṅghārāma founded at the site of the old Jetavana there was
a Vihāra nearly 60 feet high containing a seated Buddha Statue. Here the Tathāgata once
had a discussion with the Tīrthikas[6]. This Vihāra, built at the place of the discussion, is
already mentioned by Fa-hien. Giving particulars, he says that it lay outside the Eastern gate
of the Jetavana, at a distance of 70 feet in the Northern direction and to the Western side of
the street[7]. I fully agree with the opinion of Foucher[8] that the Vihāra marked the place
of the victory of the Buddha over the Tīrthikas on the occasion of the great miracle. Accordingly at least in the 4th century the miracle was already localized in the immediate vicinity
of the Jetavana. A stotra on the eight great chaityas, translated by Fa-t’ien in about 1000
A.D., expressly called the Jetavana the locality of the Mahāprātihārya[9]. All this makes it,
I think, very probable that the artist added the mango tree when representing the Jetavana.
The anachronism of which he made himself guilty while doing so may have scarcely disturbed
him. The wish to show the famous tree in his picture must have overcome the possible
scruples regarding the historical truth. Below, in the treatment of the inscription B 39.
I am going to explain that in the rest the Bhārhut relief, when depicting the miracle of
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I cannot understand how Barua, Barh. II, p. 30, is able to explain it as a basement of a new edifice.
Spence Hardy, Manual of Buddhism, p. 218, states that the trees in the park, with the exception
of the sandal and the mango trees, were cut down. In the older texts nothing is said of it. In the
Jetavana relief on the railing of Buddha-Gayā four different trees are depicted in order to hint at the
garden, but in any case no mango tree is to be seen. See Bachhofer, Frūhindische Plastik, Pl. 42.
StBh. p. 87.
cf. Sarabhamiga-jātaka (No. 483), J. IV, 264.
Divy. p. 155.
Beal, II, p. 10.
Legge, p. 59 f.
Beginnings of Buddhist Art, p. 183 f.
Lévi, Actes du dixième Congrès international des orientalistes, P. II, p. 190.
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