Ajanta: The Colour and Monochrome Reproductions of the Ajanta Frescoes Based on Photography v3.c12.s35.4

v3.c12.s35.4

¹ Warren has narrated the legend, translating it from the Introduction to the Jātaka (i. 685). A summary of Warren's translation is given here. There lived a girl in Uruvela, named Sujātā, who made a prayer to a certain banyan-tree that if she got a husband of equal rank with herself and her first child was a son, she would make a rich offering yearly to the tree. The prayer of Sujātā was granted; and to fulfil her vow she made preparation for the offering on the day of full moon of the month of Vesākha full six years after the Great Being commenced his austerities. She had pastured a thousand cows and from their milk nourished five hundred cows. From the milk of the latter she fed only two hundred and fifty, and so on down to feeding the milk of sixteen cows to eight only. This process was adopted by Sujātā to enrich the nutritive properties of the milk. On the day she wished to make the offering the milk flowed from the teats of the cows without their being sucked by the calves first, and Sujātā placed the milk in new vessels and herself lit the fire and began to cook the milk-rice. She noticed the four guardian angels helping her in preparing the dish, and by their superhuman power they collected and poured into the milk-rice the vital sap sufficient for the sustenance of the gods and men of the four great continents. Having seen the above miracle, Sujātā told her slave-girl, Puṇṇā, that the tree-deity was very graciously disposed to them and that she should go quickly to the tree and make everything ready for the offering. Puṇṇā, when she came to the tree, noticed the Buddha under it, and as his radiance had lit up the tree, she thought that the deity had come out of the tree to receive the offering in person. She ran back to her mistress and informed her of what she had seen. Sujātā was overjoyed by the news, and she poured the rice-milk into a gold dish worth a hundred thousand pieces of money, and covered it with another which was also of gold and equally costly. Afterwards she proceeded to the tree, and at the sight of the Future Buddha was exceedingly delighted, for she considered him to be the tree-god. She bowed in a respectful manner, and with some flower-scented water in a golden vase, she drew near the Future Buddha and took up a position near him. The earthenware bowl which the Future Buddha had kept so long and which had been given him by Ghaṭīkāra, the Mahā-Brahma God, at that