The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c11.s1.107

c11.s1.107

On the north-eastern corner these latter extend from Buddha's attainment of the Bodhi to his first preaching. Below, the legend of Maitrakanyaka is related to us between two others, of whose titles we are still ignorant. Our first care, therefore, must be to determine as exactly as possible where it commences and where it ends. The texts which have preserved it for us (²), and to which we are indebted for the explanation of the meaning of the bas-reliefs, agree in rendering the story in two symmetrical parts, separated by a turning-point. Maitrakanyaka, the orphan son of a shipowner, follows at first various trades, in order to provide for the needs of his mother, to whom he successively offers gains increasing according to a geometrical progression of 4, 8, 16, and 32 kārshāpaṇas; but, as she wishes to prevent him from following his father's example and going to sea, he forgets himself so far as to kick her prostrate head. The wreck of the ship which he has fitted out marks the culminating point in the story, of which the second part corresponds, point for point, with the first. Having escaped death, Maitrakanyaka is, as a reward for his works, successively and amorously received at each halting-place by 4, 8, 16 and 32 nymphs (apsaras) : but his adventurous spirit leads him still further and further, at last into a hell where sons who strike their mothers are punished. This symmetry must have been welcome to the sculptor, and must have dictated to him in his turn the arrangement of his bas-reliefs. Now the scene of the wreck is figured on no. 216 of Leemans (pl. CXXIII), and the story does not end until no. 224. One might suppose, therefore, that the four pictures which precede no. 216 are likewise consecrated to Maitrakanyaka. One thing at least is certain, namely that he appears, already accompanied by his mother, on no. 212, at the corner of the north and east façades of the stūpa. For the following ones we are entirely in accord with Prof. Speyer and Dr. Groneman.