Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c7.104

c7.104

The history of many of these earthly lives, both before and after the one just referred to, is given in the Pansiyapanas Jātaka Pota, or Book of the 550 Jātakas. Many of these ‘Birth Stories’ are exceedingly beautiful; some have been made into extended poems by mediæval Sinhalese writers; certain ones are special favourites, well known to every Sinhalese Buddhist, and depicted on the walls of every vihāra. The best known and most often painted is the Vessantara Jātaka. The Bodhisat, in his last Birth but one before that in which he attained Buddhahood, was born as a prince, Vessantara. In due course he was married to Madrī Dēvī, daughter of a neighbouring king. A son and daughter were born. At this time there was a famine in Kaliṅga, from want of rain; the king of that country, hearing that Vessantara possessed a rain-giving white elephant, sent Brahmans to ask for it as a gift. When the messengers arrived, it was pohoya day, and the prince, mounted on the elephant, was proceeding to the public alms-hall to distribute the royal bounty. He gave away the elephant at once, though its trappings alone were worth twenty-four lacs of treasure. But the citizens were angry at the loss of the elephant from which they derived so much advantage, and complained to the prince’s father, with the result that he was banished to the rocky hill called Vaṅgiriya. Madrī Dēvī would not be left behind.