North Indian Inscriptions

PART B

TEXT:
isimigo jataka

TRANSLATION:
The Jātaka of the ṛiśya-antelope.

  The sculpture illustrates the Nigrodhamigajātaka, No. 12 of the Pāli collection, one of the most famous birth stories and frequently told or alluded to^[1] in Buddhist literature. In the Pāli commentary it is located near Benares. In the Mvu., where the story is related at great length (I, 359 ff.) the scene is the well-known Isipatana Migadāya or Ṛishipatana Mṛigadāva, and Hüan-tsang in his description of Benares tells us that there was a stūpa in the park to commemorate the event. The Chinese pilgrim’s account enabled Cunningham to identify the Jātaka^[2], but he misunderstood the details of the sculpture and misinterpreted the inscription. The legend as told in Pāli consists of two parts. In the first part we are told that the Bodhisattva was born as the leader of a large herd of antelopes by the name of Nigrodha, while an equally large herd belonged to another antelopes king called Sākha. The king of Benares was passionately fond of hunting, and to stop the excessive slaughter of the deer, the two leaders agreed with the king to send one animal every day, alternately from one and the other herd, to the execution block to be killed by the cook. One day, the story goes on, the lot falls on a pregnant doe of Sākha’s herd. In vain she implores her leader to pass her over until she has brought forth her child, but when she turns for help to the Bodhisattva, the great Being at once goes himself to the place of execution. The cook is highly astonished to see the king of the deer. He informs the king, who is deeply

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affected by the magnanimity of the Bodhisattva and at his request grants immunity not only to the deer, but to all living creatures. Cunningham thought that the relief represented the interview between the king and the Bodhisattva, which leads to the agreement about the daily offering of one antelope, but the man standing before the antelope carries an axe on his left shoulder and therefore can be only the cook who has come to kill the antelope. The animal itself is standing with its forefeet placed on what seems to be a log of wood wrapped round with cords, which is perhaps meant for the block of execution, the gaṇḍikā or dhammagaṇḍikā spoken of in the Pāli text. As indicated by a tree behind the antelope the scene is not the kitchen of the royal palace, but some place in the deer park. The antelope is called isimigo in the inscription. Cunningham took the name as an abbreviation of Isipatanamigo^[3] and translated it by Ṛishi-deer. His explanation, although accepted by Hultzsch and Barua-Sinha, appears to me extremely improbable, and I am convinced that isismiga goes back to ṛiśyamṛga. In Pāli, it is true, ṛiśya has become issa as proved by issammiga (J. V, 416), issāmiga (J. V, 431), issasiṅga (J. V, 425), and therefore isimiga may be considered as belonging to another dialect; but in Pāli we have also Isisiṅga, the name of the hero of the Alambusaj. (No. 523) and the Nalinikāj. (No. 526), while undoubtedly represents Ṛiśyaśṛiṅga, and even in J. V, 431 one of the Burmese manuscripts reads isimigassa. From the Gāthā in J. V, 425, where women are called issasiṅgam ivāvattā, it appears that ṛiśya designates the black buck (Antelope cervicapra) with screwshaped horns. On the other hand, the antelope of the relief seems to have short straight horns, and it cannot be denied that,
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^[1]DhA. II, 148; Mil. P. 203.
^[2]Strangely enough, his identification was rejected by Hoernle and Oldenberg, JAOS. Vol. XVIII, p. 191.
^[3]Cunningham wrote isipattanamiga.