The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c6.41

c6.41

XIII. On another fragment of the coping (CUNNINGHAM, XLI, 1-3) is figured in two successive scenes the story of a stupid fighting ram, who is inspired by his warlike instincts to charge a Brahmanic ascetic : we must say in his excuse that the latter was wearing a garment of skin (*Jât.* 324). The whole humour of the affair is that the monk imagines, at the moment when the ram stoops, ready to rush upon him, that even the beasts bow before his worth. It is in vain that a young merchant, no other than the Bodhisattva, warns him of his imprudent mistake : there he is soon on his back, upset along with the double burden which he was balancing on his shoulder.