North Indian Inscriptions

PART B

who sees the ascetic in order to become his pupil, as it is narrated in the Tibetan version of the tale. I think the second explanation is out of question. The story in the Kanjur, translated by Schiefner,^[1] is a strongly modified version of the Jātaka. For our purpose it is unnecessary to enter into discussion of all the deviations. In any case the characteristic episode of the king’s sitting in the court, which is proved by Gāthās 37 and 38 to be an old component of the story, is missing in the Tibetan version. The place of the charioteer who has to kill the prince has been taken by the executioner. This is apparently a secondary alteration, for in opposition to it here also the prince, in a stanza corresponding to G. 3 of the Pāli, puts the question to the charioteer as to why he is digging the grave. In the Tibetan version furthermore the conversation between the king and his son does not take place in the forest to which the prince has retired. The prince, on the contrary, returns from the spot, where he was to be buried, to the king’s palace and from there he goes to the forest with the consent of the king, where he leads the life of an ascetic under the guidance of a Ṛishi.

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As the relief agrees in the first two points exactly with the older version attested by the Gāthās and has nothing in’ common with the Tibetan narration it is impossible to presume that the artist followed the Tibetan version in the third scene. Also there is not the slightest ground to show why this scene could not be explained in the scene of the Pāli Gāthās. S. von Oldenburg mentions the fact that in the Burmese Temiyajātaka the king visits the prince not in the forest but in a monastery as going against such possibility. But I cannot regard this objection as valid. The Burmese Temiyajātaka,^[2] which by the way has been composed only in 1787, is an adaptation of the Pāli Jātaka which generally very closely follows the original. When the author speaks of a monastery instead of an āśrama he is probably no more aware of the deviating from his text than when he renders pabbajati always ‘ to become Rahan’. I take it as quite possible or even probable that the original narration of the Jātaka followed by’ the artist was more simple than the one now handed down to us in the prose. Such features as the construction of the āśrama by Vissakamma, the conversion of the king with his family, of all his subjects, and of two other kings may have been added later on^[3]. The Gāthās do not contain anything of it, nor, on the other hand, anything which is opposed to the sculptural representation.

  In this case, quite exceptionally, the title borne by the Jātaka in the Siṁhalese tradition and by the label is essentially the same. As the reading is distinctly mugaphakiya, not mugapakiya, it is unnecessary to discuss the absurd explanation given for mūgapaka^[4]. The Pāli term mūgapakkha has a parallel in mūgapakkhika in G. 254 of the Nidānakathā, where it is said that the Bodhisattvas are never mūgapakkhika, In the Jātaka the compound mūgapakkha occurs only in G. 55. In G. 4; 5; 33; 38; 54 pakkha is used by the side of mūga, which shows that pakkha in mūgapakkhika cannot represent Sk. paksha as suggested in the PD., where mūgapakkhika is rendered by ‘ leading to deafness (sic)’, while Rhys Davids translated it ‘ classed among the dumb’. In the commentary of the Jātaka (12, 26) pakkho is explained by pīṭhasappī ‘ one who crawls with the use of some support’ (lit. chair), which is used also instead of pakkho in the prose tale (4, 15). A more accurate explanation of pakkha is furnished by G. 33:

nahaṁ asandhitā pakkho na badhiro asotatā
nāhaṁ ajivhaā mūgo mā maṁ mūgam adharayi

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^[1]Tibetan Tales, p. 247 ff.
^[2]Translated by R. F. St. Andrew St. John, JRAS. 1893, p. 357 ff.
^[3]The model for these additions was perhaps found in the story of Vissakamma’s constructing the kaviṭṭha-hermitage, told in the Sarabhaṅgajātaka. See Lūders, Bhārh., pp. 112-119, especially p. 114.
^[4]‘dumb but ripe’ or’ where wisdom ripes in silence’, Barua-Sinha Bl. p. 97; Barua, Barh. II, p. 152.