Jain Journal 1980 04

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

Page 57

168
manoram' ujjanam tattha sumano nama jakkho, tassa asoya-payavasamsiya sila sumana, tattha nam jana puyanti.42 Translation: 'In Bharata, in the Magadha region, in the Sali-village is a park called Manorama ; there resides a Yaksa Sumana by name, his stone (platform) is located under an Asoka-tree, there the people pay their homage.' In Zimmer's book (op. cit., II, Fig. 90) Yaksa Sakyavardhana is depicted sitting on a stone slab under a tree eyeing the newly born Bodhisattva.
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In our case Yaksis ans Devatas, female spirits and goddesses, are associated with trees in the pose of a salabhanjika. They are represented in their good mood through their branch-bending gestures by taking part in auspicious games with the trees. And there is really no other pose than this one which could more clearly express the unity of a tree with its deity. Seals have also been found in Mohenjodaro, which depict a tree deity between two stems. But I did not see any example among them in which the figure raises her arm in order to seize the branch of a tree. With the association of women with trees we reach common human archaic ground. In P. Ovidi Nasonis Metanorphoseon 1.452-567 the metamorphose of the nymph Daphne into a tree is narrated when she ran away before Phoebus in order to eacape the touch of the lover. We read in Met. 1.550, 551 :
In frondem crines, in ramos bracchia crescunt; Pes modo tam velox pigris radicibus haeret.
Translation: 'Her hair grows into the foliage and her arms into the branches of a tree; and her foot now, once so quick, stick in inert roots.'
Compare also the sad story of Cinyras and Myrrha who was transformed into a tree together with not yet born child she was carrying.43
Returning to salabhanjika and dohada the following may also be observed. Pisharoti has given some examples which he interprets as dohada.44 He remarks for instance: "The Mandapam of the Ramacandra temple at Rajim, C.P., has its pillars beset with them.' (Pl. XXIX, op. cit., p.118) The pillar-figures on the right hand side of the Mandapam, raising their left arms and bending down the bough represent the salabhanjika pose. Among them is one who bends her right leg touching the trunk of a tree, which may be interpreted as a 'kick' but also could be a pose included in lila-tthiya--'leisurely inclined against', as we have learned from our Prakrit sources. But the pillarfigure on the left of the Mandapam in the foreground seems to represent alingana-dohada. The figure is turned towards the pillar, the right arm