The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c11.s1.103

c11.s1.103

too has for scenery a piece of jungle : for our king is evidently not thinking of killing the male *Kinnara*, in order to get possession of the female. It therefore remains for us to adopt the *Bhallāṭiya-jātaka* (no. 504), in which also we have nothing but conversations in a mountainous district (¹). It is a most touching love story. The king of Benares, while out hunting, surprises in the depth of the wood the extraordinary behaviour of two of these marvellous beings, and enquires why they cover each other alternately with tears and caresses. He learns that 697 years ago they were separated for one single night by the sudden swelling of a river; and in their life of a thousand years the loving couple have never yet been able to forget this cruel separation, or to console each other entirely for those few hours irremediably lost to their happiness. It will be observed on pl. XLI, 1, that the sculptor has considered it his duty to maintain the hierarchical order, and has placed the male in front of the female, as if he were the interlocutor of the king: but in the text of the *jātaka*, just as in the famous Dantesque episode of Francesca di Rimini, it is the woman, always the more ready to speak, who relates their common adventure, whilst her lover stands silent by her side.