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MAURYA ART IN KALINGA
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fectly White Elephant bringing happiness, indeed, to the whole world. It seems that the Girnar rock also bore the representation of an elephant, traces of which are not found now.
Commenting on the above terms, D. R. Bhandarkar wrote_"Here Śākya Buddha is implied there can be no doubt, for the legend says that the Bodhisattva, the future Buldha, left the Tushita Heaven to bring happiness to men and entered his mother's womb in the form of a white Elephant."
Along with this association of the inscriptions with the elephant, we should also note the association of the Asokan Pillars with the four animals—the Elephant, the Bull, the Horse and the Lion, figuring as capitals and chosen for the purpose of symbolication of different stages in the life of the Buddha. The Elephant typifies the Conception, the Bull as the Presiding Diety over the Nativity, the Horse as the Great Departure or Renunciation and the Lion as the Lion among the sākyas viz., Sākyasiri ha' - the appellation by which the Budha was known. A further reason of Asoka's selection of these animals might, perhaps, be that
1. R. K. Mookerji, Asoka, p. 170, fn. 3; D. R. Bhandarkar, Asoka, pp. 176-177.
2. Asoka, p. 177; Cf. also the Digha Nikāya, II, pp. 12, 13, 55; Jätaka, I, p. 50 ; Ind. Anti , Vol. V, pp. 257-59.
In the Anguttara Nikaya (III, p. 315) one of the best royal elephants of Kosala is named 'Seta', while in the Dhammapada Commentary (IT, p. 1) it is called Punda rika' i. e. the White Lotus. In the Jātakas, an elephant of noble breed, endowed with personality, is generally described as all-White (IV, p. 90 ; V, p. 45), and occasionally as collyrium-coloured (IT, pp 65f), or black-stone-coloured (IV, p. 137). In the Vimānavatthu stories, the all-White and best elephant figures as a Vebiole of the gods. The Jātaka (lescription, viz., 'Sabb iseto inaugalı hatthi' (VI. p. 487) of the State-elephant of Vassantara corresponds very much with the Girnar label.
3. Mookerji, Asoka, p. 62.
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