The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c10.68

c10.68

II. — From a photograph taken by the author at the Madras museum in December 1896. The number and variety of the episodes collected together on this single medallion, among trees and rocks used as frames, give it, in contrast to the simplicity of that at Barhut, an especially entangled and confused appearance. — 1. On the lower part, to the right, we see the miraculous elephant with six tusks, standing between his two queens, of whom the first, on his left, holds over his head a parasol, whilst on the right the second flourishes a fly-flapper. — 2. He moves in the direction of the lotus pond, which occupies the bottom of the picture, and where we see him sporting with a numerous company ; the apparently female pachyderm who is coming precipitately out of the pond on the left and who then seems to crouch in order to throw herself down some precipice, would perhaps be intended to awake the remembrance of the jealous wife and her suicide? — 3. Whatever may be the fact concerning this detail, the story is now continued on the right, in the upper portion of the medallion. The great elephant is depicted standing at the moment when he crosses the fatal ditch in which lurks the hunter, whose bust only is to be seen between the animal's legs. — 4. A little more to the left the elephant, whose fore. part only is shown, is kneeling, in order that the hunter may cut off his tusks by the aid of a saw furnished with a curved spring, much more elaborate than the tool used at Barhut. — 5. Finally, right at the top, the latter carries away, on the two ends of a pole balanced on his right shoulder, the *spolia opima* of the Bodhisattva. It is curious to observe that the tusks are twelve in number, six (2×3) at each end of the pole! Here and there indications of antelopes and deer, while lending animation to the scene, only add to the crowding.