Jain Journal 1980 04

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

Page 77

182
JAIN JOURNAL
in the evening by the side of his wall he found on the morrow his salad grown ; and on certain occasions she had, by the touching of her petticoats, caused the trees to put forth leaves and hastened the buds. (quoted from Droll Stories by Honore de Balzac, Jaico Publishing House, Bombay, Newyork, Calcutta, 1949, p. 248) Another interesting occurrence outside the Indian sphere is recorded in the Koran, sura XIX, 16-21, with reference to the nativity of Christ. Here Maria is reported to have withdrawn with the child conceived from the spirit to a remote place in despair. There the birthpangs surprised her by the trunk of a palm-tree. She heard a voice saying that she would not worry, as the Lord had set a rivulet below her and that she should shake the palm-tree from which dates fresh and ripe would fall down. For reference cf. 'The Holy Quran' Text, Translation and Commentary by Abdullah Yusuf Ali, Lahore, 1938, Vol. II, pp. 771-773, and A. J. Arberry, 'The Koran Interpreted', in two volumes, London, George Allen, 1955, Vol. I, p. 331.
The motif of the rivulet reminds of the streams of water which came up from a fountain on the occasion of the birth of the Bodhisattva Vipasyin, mentioned in Mahavastu 1.220. 19-221, 2 and in the Mahavadanasutra, 5f, cf. E. Waldschmidt, Das Mahavadanasutra, Teil II, Akademie Verlag Berlin, 1956, p. 92, note 3.
The rivulet can even be traced in a German mediaeval painting which depicts the Birth of Christ by the master of the Polling tablets (about 1444) with the first identifiable German landscape painting, exhibited in the Haus der Kunst, Muenchen.
The Commentator Al-Baidawi (A.D. 1225-1260) gives an explanation which is of interest in the context of this article. After he comments upon Mary finding herself under a palm-tree when the labour pains came upon her, he writes: "The palm-tree was dry (kanat nakhla yabusutu) and without crown foliage (la ra's verbal: "without head") and it had no fruit (leha va la tamar), and it was the time of winter (va kana al-vaqt sita), then she shook it (the palm-tree) (fa-hazzatha), the God created for it a crown-foliage, blossoms and fresh dates and so she was comforted (fa-ga'la al-Illah leha ra's va khusa va rotaba' va tasliyateha).'
Prof. K. M. Maitra, Curator of Islamic Maunscripts, Asiatic Society of Bengal, Calcutta, kindly helped me to trace this passage.
These passages show that the Arabic tradition has preserved the motif of the birth of the Lord under a tree in connection with the fertilizing of a tree through the touch of the mother, called dohada in India.
With the above-mentioned material at hand it is near to assume that Indian motifs have been reflected here.
For reference cf. Beidawii Commentarius in Coranum ex Codd. Parsiensibus, Dresdensibus et Lipsiensibus, editit H. O. Fleischer, Vol.II, p. 579, 1.22,23, Lipsiae 1848 and Mary in Islam by V. Courtois, S. J., St. Xavier's College, The Oriental Institute, Islamic Section, 30, Park Street, Calcutta, 1954, pp. 20-22.
Dr. N. Klein reminded me of an old German mediaeval song on Maria, called the Jugenheimer Leiderblatt. According to this song Maria went through a forest full of thorns, where there had not been leaves for seven years. She carried her little child without pains under her heart. When she had carried the child in her through the forest, roses sprang up on the thorns! Reference; Der Zupfgeigenhausl, ed. by Hans Breuer, Leipzig, 1922, p.98. This song gives us another instance of how a mother bearing a child animates