Jain Journal 1980 04

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

Page 45

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JAIN JOURNAL
ancient Indian literature, leads us to the conclusion that the Ardhamagadhi sphere of East India is the homeplace of salabhanjia in the wider sense of its original meaning, namely : carving of a woman bending down the branch of a tree. 22 This is corroborated by what we have learned from the Kašikā to Pāṇini VI, 2, 74 with regard to the designations of games in Eastern India !
Vogel, referring to the figures of females seizing the branch of a blossoming tree, especially frequent on the railing pillars of Mathura, raises the question : May we not assume that to these pillar-figures the term salabhanjika was applied ?' (op. cit., p. 206) With the abundant reference material on salabhanjia obtainable from canonical Jaina AMg. texts, I would not hesitate to answer in the full affirmative especially with regard to the images which are connected with the famous Jaina Stupa at Kankali Tila. The meaning of salabhanjia obtained from the AMg. literature justifies us to apply this term to these woman-tree carvings irrespective if the woman is depicted seizing the branch of a Salatree, an Asoka-tree, or another tree.
Summing up our subject, the following historical development of the term salabhanjia appears to be evident now. Originally salabhanjika denoted an ausipicious game in Eastern India recorded in the Kāśikā to Pāņini Vi, 2, 74 along with the other terms uddulakapuspabhanjika viranapuspapracayika and talabhanjika and salabhanjika mentioned alone as a game in the 53rd story of the Avadānaśataka, reffered to by Vogel at the beginning of his article.
That we will have to presume as the background of these games seems to be indicated by the well-known story of the future Buddha's birth in the Lumbini Grove near Kapilavatthu, mentioned in the Nidānakātha of the Jatakas. According to this tradition Maya expressed her wish to play a Sala-Grove game (salavanakilam kilitukamata) on the way to her native place Devadaha. She went to a Sala-tree intending to get hold of one of its branches. The branch bent down itself. Maya stretched out her hand and took hold of it, after which the labour pains came upon her. The attendants drew a screen 23 around Maya and retired. 24
It is most significant that Maya standing in this pose, which is familiar to us as the pose of a salabhanjia, delivers her child.
This seems to me evidence enough that the salabhanjia game, played when the Sala-trees were in their full blossoming time, was interwoven