Ajanta: The Colour and Monochrome Reproductions of the Ajanta Frescoes Based on Photography v4.c16.s24: The Matsya Jātaka, or the Story of the Fish Which Saved Its Kinsfolk from Certain Death

Ajanta: The Colour and Monochrome Reproductions of the Ajanta Frescoes Based on Photography v4.c16.s24

Language: English

The Matsya Jātaka, or the Story of the Fish Which Saved Its Kinsfolk from Certain Death

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*The story is painted near the end of the rear wall of the back corridor, right of the antechamber in Cave XVII.*

THE fresco has been badly blackened by the smoke of the fires lit by *yogīs* who lived in the cave in later times, and who did not understand either the religious or the artistic merits of the paintings. Further, owing to the damage done by birds and insects, several portions of the fresco have peeled off from the rock-wall and big gaps are now to be seen in the painting. The subject is based upon the *Matsya Jātaka*,¹ and a tank is represented which is swarming with fish of various sizes and shapes, and among them a large one, the King Fish, has raised itself up and is looking towards heaven as if to pray for rain to save its kinsfolk from destruction. There are as many as fifty fish shown in the painting and they are all poorly drawn; but the figures of cranes and some other aquatic birds, which are shown flying above the water or sitting in different attitudes near the top left-hand part of the tank, exhibit art of a better type. The necks of the cranes, which are twisted and stretched in various manners, appear particularly pleasing to the eye.

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¹ The story as given in the *Jātaka* (i, 184-5) is here summarized: The Bodhisattva was once born as a fish living in a tank at Sāvatthi (Śrāvastī) in the kingdom of Kosala. A drought overtook the land; the crops withered, and water gave out in tanks and pools, causing the fishes and the tortoises of this pond to bury themselves in the mud. The crows and other birds flocked to the spot and picked them out with their beaks and devoured them. Noticing the sorry plight of his kinsfolk, the Great Being decided to save them in their hour of need. He therefore came out, parting the mud from underneath. He made a solemn Profession of Goodness and by its efficacy obliged Pajjunna, king of Devas, to cause heavy rains to fall, and thus saved his kinsfolk from certain death. And when his life closed, he passed away to reap the reward of his kind act.

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As the stories of the virtuous deeds of the Buddha in his previous births were probably related occasionally by the chief monk to his disciples in such *vihāras*, the illustrations of the stories on the rock-walls must have added much to the zest of the votaries in following the morals contained in the stories. Apart from their religious significance, which, however, cannot be overlooked, several of these paintings may appear to a strict art critic overcrowded and ill arranged on the rock-wall, particularly those executed in the back corridor of this cave. The only plausible answer which can be given to the connoisseur in defence of the artists is that the teaching of the doctrine and the propagation of the legends were the essential aims of the painters in the monasteries of Ajanta, and to consider them as merely galleries of art and to judge them solely from that point of view is, therefore, perhaps hardly justifiable. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that the builders of the monasteries and the chief monks who watched the work of decoration when it was in progress encouraged art to the best of their understanding, and allotted the master-artists appropriate places and adequate space for the execution and display of their work.

Cites (2)

Jātakatthavaṇṇanā — Pāli
Jātaka — Pāli