Manuscript Illustrations Of Uttaradhyayana Sutra

Author(s): W Norman Brown
Publisher: American Oriental Society

Page 40

THE LEAF OF THE TREE
the same fashion and flanked by two adoring disciples, who wear their robes over their heads and are presumably nuns (cf. BrKS 2). In the lower register are four monks: three carry staffs, and of these two hold manuscripts in the right hand and are preaching, while the third has his hands joined before him in a reverential gesture. The fourth monk has no staff; he holds his hands before him in reverence. The identification of these two nuns and four monks is difficult; they may be the various kings and the queen mentioned abovealthough why two nuns?-or they may simply represent Mahāvira's entourage.
11. THE VERY LEARNED This chapter recounts the duties of a monk and the excellence of him who has mastered them all. In verses 16-31 the very learned monk is compared successively to a Kamboja steed, which never takes fright and excels all others in speed, to a valiant hero seated on a trained horse, an elephant of sixty years, which is then in its prime, a bullock that is leader of its herd, a lion, superior to all other animals, the god Vasudeva (Vishnu incarnate as Krishna), who is irresistible, a universal emperor (cakravartin) with his fourteen jewels, the god Sakra (lord of the Jain heavens and deus ex machina in Jain legend), the rising sun dispelling darkness, the full moon, a storehouse full of grain, the jambu tree Sudarśanā, which is the abode of the deity Aņādhiya, the great river Šītā, mount Mandara, the inexhaustible ocean on which reclines the self-existent god Nārāyaṇa.
The illustrations of DV (fig. 34), HV (fig. 32), and JM (fig. 35) are quite uninteresting, and show Mahāvira seated preaching to a monk (DV, HV) or to two monks (JM); but in JP (fig. 33) there are shown fourteen of the fifteen objects of comparison cited above. The painting has four registers. In the uppermost is a seated (very learned) monk; facing him are a prancing Kamboja horse and the sixty-year old elephant with upraised trunk, its body painted and adorned for state ceremonial. In the second register are the valiant hero-but he is seated under a tree instead of on a charger-the bullock, and the lion. In the third register is Krishna, fourarmed, holding discus, conch, and mace; beside him are the universal emperor carrying a flower and a club, and then the god Sakra, also four-armed, with his vajra (thunder-bolt) and elephant goad. In the bottom register are the jambu tree Sudarśanā, the river Sitā, mount Mandara, the inexhaustible ocean (shown exactly like the river Sitā), the moon, and below it the sun. Of the objects mentioned in the text only the storehouse of grain is missing.
12. HARIKEŚA The long story of Harikeśa is only partly told in the Uttarādhyayana text; all the former part must be supplied from the commentaries, Harikeśa had in previous existences been born of good family and with desirable physical characteristics, and in consequence he had experienced great pride; the result was that he had now been reborn with the name Bala in a Svapāka (Cāņdāla, Untouchable) family, ugly, ridiculous to his fellows, and repulsive. One day, at a festival, the other Candāla boys were giving a pantomime (nrtya), but they refused to let Harikeśa take part. As he stood watching a poisonous serpent came