The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c6.s1.3

c6.s1.3

Of the second form of the legend the clearest summary that we at present possess has been preserved to us by the Chinese pilgrim Hiuan-tsang with reference to a ruined convent of Gandhâra, in the extreme north-west of India. « It was in this place, he tells us, that formerly there lived the *rishi* Unicorn; this *rishi*, having allowed himself to be led astray by a courtesan, lost his supernatural powers; the courtesan mounted on his shoulders and thus returned to the town » (cf. *Jât.* 523 ; *Daçakumâracarita*, II, 2 etc.). Here there is no longer any question of the father of the hermit, and the age of the latter is left undetermined. On the other hand, what we are told of him reminds us of the fables detailed in our relations of animal stories, the so-called « Bestiaria » of the Middle Ages, concerning the Unicorn which only a young girl is able to capture : « And she (says their source, the Physiologus) commands the animal and it obeys her; and she leads it away to the king's palace ». Why there rather than elsewhere? This unexpected trait forms, on the contrary, an integral part of the adventure of the shy anchorite Unicorn, whom the king's daughter very naturally leads to her father, or whom the courtesan has wagered that she will bring back to the court. And, again, the piquant detail that this latter mounts astride on the shoulders of the wise *rishi* awakens invincibly the memory of the celebrated « Lay of Aristotle ».