Jain Journal 1980 04

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

Page 53

164
JAIN JOURNAL
In his note 1,p.119, he refers to Vogel's article 'On Woman and Tree or Salabhanjika' and remarks : ‘We do not agree with him when he would characterize every combination of woman and tree as a salabhanjika and say this decorative motif,..... From his citations it is clear that the earliest positive reference to salabhanjika occurs in Bana, a contemporary of Harsa of Kanauj. We believe, a clear distinction can be made between pratiyatana and salabhanjika.'
One who carefully goes through Vogels' article will see that there is no such intention. Pisharoti did not notice Vogel's quotation of Asvaghosa's Buddhacarita V.52, a work belonging to first century A.D., in which Cowel's emendation of torana-malabhanjika into salabhanjika has been fully confirmed later by further manuscript material from Nepal (see p.158) and by Prakrit passages (see pp.154, 155).
Pisharoti continues : 'Thus the citations he has given do not tend to make clear the origin of the term salabhanjika and we would preferably accept the meaning of the term as given in lexicons, namely a female figure. The interpretation of the term sala as referring to the material of which it is made need not be necessarily wrong when it is remembered that the Bharhut, Sanci, and Mathura railings are stone copies of original wooden ones. And this leads to the conclusion that original figures were made of wood, probably of the Sala tree. This characterization of all woman and tree figures as Salabhanjika is a little too farfetched. For in the first place the woman and tree combination figures as decoration on pillars and brackets, as well as on door jambs. In the second place we have no specific literary reference which connects woman and tree as Salabhanjika. If indeed the woman and tree at Bharhut. Sanci, etc. represent Salabhjanjika, in the original sense of the term, the tree should have been depicted as Sala, particularly in view of the Buddhistic importance of the place and the Buddhistic associations of the Sala tree, but, unfortunately, some of these are Asoka and others Mango. And, lastly, such an identification does not help us explain their activity. Hence we interpret these as dohada figures ; or, following the terminology of Sanskritic writers, we may call them Dohada-salabhanjika on the model of such expressions as torana-salabhanjika, stambha-salabhanjika or sala-salabhanjika.' (op cit., Note 1, p.119)
The aforesaid gives the view which Pisharoti holds in connection with the Bharhut figures. He is right when he states that images originally were carved in wood. Where his remark 'We have no specific literary reference which connects woman and tree as salabhanjika' is concerned, he is only right so far as no such reference has been given in Vogel's