Jain Journal 1977 01

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 12

JANUARY, 1977
in helping his followers to escape from being shot by the King's archers. Fatally injured by Devadatta, also a monkey at the time when he was rescueing his horde by stretching his own body to complete a bamboobridge over the Ganga the dying Boddhisattva was given a regal honour by the king who felt a genuine admiration for his courage and sacrifice. The theme has been depicted in Sunga idiom both on the railing of Bharhut as also on the West Gateway (right pillar) of Stupa I of Sanchi. The Mahākapi Jātaka II (No. 516) also relates how the Bodhisattva was born as a monkey and in that existence forgave an ungrateful husbandman who lost his way in search of his Thoth worshipping the strayed oxen and fell into the depth
rising sun of a dangerous pit in the dense The Egyptian Museum, Cairo forest of the Himalayas. Though the monkey rescued him from the deep pit the man 'hit him on the head with a stone' when he was tired and asleep after saving the life of the same person. Despite this mean and ignominious act the Boddhisattva guided bim towards safety and returned amidst his sylvan home. A relief at Bharhut depicts the moments when the husbandman is carried by the monkey on his back and the man repays it by striking him with a rock.“ These Jātaka stories reveal an ideal and thereby attribute a sublime moral and nobility to the monkey as the image of the Bodhisattva ever manifesting a perfection of character and a spiritual grandeur. The story of the offering of a bowl of honey to Buddha is another absorbing tale which highlights an ancient faith or a myth of variegated origin. In the accounts of the travels of Yuan Chwang in India there is a reference to the legend. While describing his journey to the country of Vaisali (Feishe-li) the Chinese pilgrim refers to the Monkey Tank (Sanskrit Markata Hrada) and the story of the devotion of the monkeys towards the Buddha.6 After relating about the tope that mmemorated the attainment of
• Marshall: Guide to Sanchi, pp. 78-79; N. G. Majumdar: A Guide to the
Sculptures in the Indian Museum, Part I, pp.36-60.
N. G. Majumdar : A Guide to the Sculptures in Indian Museum, p. 39. • Watters: On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, edited by (after his death) Rhys
Davids and Bushell, Delhi, 1961.