Indian Sculpture c8.105

c8.105

49. Roundel from Amarāvatī, referring to the Mūga Pakkha Jātaka.¹⁹⁸ Middle second century A.D. Madras Museum. Prince Temiya pretends to be insensate, because from his birth he has renounced the world. His distressed parents try in vain to make him interested in the world. They summon women, full of all graces, to make the prince laugh or to entangle him in sinful thoughts. The women surround him and try to delight him with dancing and singing, but in vain. His parents try him again and again, for sixteen years, sometimes his father, sometimes his mother implores him. Finally, after many sleepless nights of sorrow, the king decides to have him killed in the charnel ground. The mother beseeches Temiya the whole night, but he is glad in his heart, for his desire has attained its end. He does not utter a word, and when in the morning Sunanda, the charioteer, comes to take him to the charnel ground, he lifts him up like a bundle of flowers.