The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c11.s1.51

c11.s1.51

10. (L., 80). The *Divyâvadâna* tells us, immediately after, that not far from Vaiçâlî there is a charming wood, in which reside five hundred *rishis*. Now extraneous noises are the scourge of pious meditations. A surly anchorite, annoyed by the noise of certain cranes, breaks their wings by a curse. King Mândhâtar, angered in his turn by this hardness of heart, requests the hermits to depart from his dominions. The bas-relief also shows us birds placed on the ground between the king, who is standing in conversation with a stooping courtier, and two *rishis*, recognizable by their big chignons and their rosaries, who are fleeing by the route of the air.