A History of Indian Literature v2.c19.s3.t2.318

Language: English

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[^1): We meet with the legend of Vessantara in pictorial representations also. Cf. *Foucher*, *L'art gréco-bouddhique*, I, 283 ff. The Chinese traveller Song Yun relates that he saw a picture in Shâhbâz-Garhi reproducing the Vessantara legend, and that, whenever they saw this picture, the barbarians shed tears of pity for the pious man who had given away his children to the wicked Brahman. *Chavannes*, Cinq Cents Contes, t. I, p. x. P. *Dahlke* (ZB., I, 1914, p. 9) says: "This Vessantara legend is a favourite decoration in Buddhist temples. I have seen it represented from Ceylon to Cambodia. In the Wesak season it is...produced on the stage of the people's theatres, and never does it fail to produce its effect." R. *Fick* (Festgabe Jacobi, pp. 145 ff.) has compared the various versions of the Vessantara Jātaka, with a view to tracing its original form. He shows that the Jātakamālā probably used an earlier version than that of the Pāli Jātaka. A Soghdian version of the Jātaka has been published by R. *Gauthiot* (JA., 1912, s. 10, t. XIX, pp. 163 ff.). [^2): Pārami or Pāramitā, "highest perfection," is the technical expression for the ten (or six) perfections which a Bodhisatta possesses, namely: Generosity, virtue (*i.e.* obedience to the commandments), renunciation of the world, wisdom, energy, patience, truthfulness, determination, friendliness towards all creatures, equanimity. Cf. R. *Spence Hardy*, Manual of Buddhism, 1860, pp. 98, 101 ff.; *Kern*, Manual, p. 66.

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The expressions pārami, pāramitā do not appear in the earliest texts, or in the Jātaka-Gāthās; but in the super-human gifts, such as the recollection of former existences, extraordinary physical powers or mental faculties, and so on. This conception of the Bodhisatta as a higher being, generally plays only a secondary part in the texts of the Theravāda sect of the Hīnayāna, whose canon is the Pāli Tipiṭaka, while with the sects of the Mahāyāna, it has been developed all the more fully. It is no accident, therefore, that the Jātakas belong to the Mahāyāna just as much as to the Hīnayāna, and the question could be raised whether their actual native soil was not Mahāyāna Buddhism rather than Hīnayāna. Indeed we find Jātakas in the texts of all Buddhist sects. Most probably they did not originally belong to any sect; but as they were one of the chief media of propaganda, and carried Buddhism into extensive circles, especially the popular Buddhism, in which there could not have been much difference between the sects, they penetrated, along with this Buddhism, deep into the mind of the people. Even at the present day, there is no book so popular among the Buddhist peoples as the Jātaka. The Singhalese still listen the whole night through, to the recitation of the Jātakas without any trace of fatigue, and with unaffected delight.

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In Burma, too, the Jātakas are and have been for centuries the delight of both learned and unlearned, of monks and laymen alike;¹ and it is the same in every place to which Buddhism has penetrated. A. *Schiefner* ² has given us an idea of the immense wealth of Buddhist narratives in Tibetan literature, and Ed. *Chavannes*¹ has enlightened us as to the abundance of Chinese Buddhist narratives. Directly and indirectly the Jātakas have also enriched the literatures of many other peoples, and have therefore been of immense importance in universal literature, even though to-day we no longer believe, with Th. *Benfey*, that the entire fairy tale literature of the world is of Buddhist origin. Nevertheless, however largely the Brahmans, Jains and other sects might have contributed to Indian narrative literature, Buddhism alone pressed forward far beyond the limits of India as a world-religion, thus diffusing Indian civilisation and literature far and wide in all countries of the East and West.² On the other hand, it was Buddhism, too, which brought the Indians more than ever before into contact with other peoples; and it is not probable that it was only the Indians who brought their stories to those peoples every time; they, in their turn, must have received narratives from them too, especially from peoples who stood so high, intellectually, as the Greeks, Persians and Semites.

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In all probability, the Greek artists, who came to India in great crowds after Alexander’s campaign and helped to build and ornament so many Buddhist monuments of art, also brought many Greek narratives and motifs to India. This is the more probable, as it is precisely the Jātakas which were in many cases pictorially represented on the Buddhist monuments. For, as the literature, so, Indian and non-Indian art too, was enriched by the Jātakas. They belong to the oldest subjects that were pictorially represented in India, and to-day they are still favourite themes for sculpture and painting in all Buddhist countries. We find them in the 3rd and 2nd centuries B.C. on the stone walls of Bharhut and Sānchi, in the 2nd century A.D. on those of Amarāvatī, and still later in the caves of Ajaṇtā.[^1) When the Chinese pilgrim Fa-hien travelled in Ceylon in the year 412 A.D. he saw how, at the festival of the sacred tooth, in Abhayagiri, the king of Ceylon had the five hundred Jātakas represented by figures ranged on either side of the street along which the procession passed, brightly coloured and grandly executed, looking as if they were alive.

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And Hsüan-Tsang relates of Stūpas seen by him, which had been erected in various parts of India in memory of the deeds of the Bodhisatta as recounted in Jātakas.[^2) Many hundreds of reliefs which contain Jātaka illustrations, decorate the temples of Boro-Budur in Java (9th century),[^3) of Pagan in Burma (13th century),[^4) and of Sukhodaya in Siam (14th century).[^5)