The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c10.24

c10.24

Certainly we should not for that reason remain completely disarmed before the confused mass of these often divergent versions; and it would be our part to introduce — by recourse, for want of anything better, to some internal principle of coordination — an order at least theoretical. It is indeed the favourite occupation of folklorists thus to draw up genealogical trees of what they have decided to call « families of tales ». But, if the enterprise is possible, and the pastime permissible, it goes without saying that the result can be of value only upon a double condition, namely that we shall have known how to choose the topical detail which must act as main-spring for the establishment of the series, and that we shall have well observed and followed out, in the arrangement of this series, the natural course of human affairs. Now, in the case of the *Shaḍḍanta-jātaka* we are in no wise puzzled to discover at once the characteristic trait and the way in which to use it. It is a well recognized law that successive versions of narratives of this kind have a tendency continually to outdo each other in the direction of increasing edification. The usual effect of this pious inclination is, let us say in passing, to destroy by degrees the whole salt of the story together with its probability and its ingenuousness, while substituting for it compositions whose insipidity is sweetened to the point of nausea. Nevertheless there is no religious literature, and the Buddhist less than any other, which, its original raciness once evaporated, escapes this deplorable and fatal invasion of convention and artificiality. Now what, in the theme with which we are at present concerned, is the essential point, wherein exactly its edification lies? In order that we may not be accused of choosing arbitrarily and to suit the necessities of the case, let us appeal to the *Lalitavistara*, which happens to sum it up in a verse (¹): at the time of his previous birth as the elephant Shaḍdanta (it is the Gods themselves who subsequently remind the Bodhisattva, in order to encourage him to follow his vocation) « thou didst sacrifice thy teeth of dazzling beauty, but morality was saved. » This is indeed the point of the story, which has caused it to be ranged under the category of the « perfection of morality », or better, « of goodness » (²): it is the surrender by the elephant of his beautiful ivory tusks, as sanction to the pardon granted to the hunter who has just mortally wounded him. But there is more than one way of returning good for evil, and it can be done with more or less good grace. In this particular case the virtuous elephant might have limited himself to allowing his enemy to work his will; or, better, he might have facilitated the operation for him; or finally, which quite attains to the sublime, he might have done the deed himself for the advantage of his murderer. It is evidently in the order of this increasing generosity that, in theory, the various versions will have to be classified.