Indian Sculpture c8.78

c8.78

35. Mahākapi Jātaka, top panel, right pillar, front face. West gate, Sāñcī. Second part, first century B.C. The Bodhisattva, born as leader of a troop of monkeys who lived near the Ganges, and at the front of a great mango tree, saved them when king Brahmadatta of Benares had the tree beleaguered by his soldiers, in order to kill the monkeys and to get the mangoes. The Bodhisattva with his own body made a bridge across the river, and over it the monkeys escaped to the other shore. But the wicked Devadatta, who then was one of the monkeys, jumped on the Bodhisattva’s back and injured him to death. The king, seeing the monkey chief’s goodness, repented, and the dying Mahākapi (great monkey) gave the king advice about the duties of a ruler.190