Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c4.t6.99

c4.t6.99

³ It would be interesting and also, we think, instructive in this connection to observe the life-like and realistic court-scene of those days represented on a medallion at Barhut. The scene is taken from one of our Jātakas, No. 540. We reproduce here the description of the scene as given by A. Foucher in his "The Beginnings of Buddhist Art," pp. 50-51: "Amarā, the virtuous wife, whose husband is absent, has four suitors to whom she assigns an interview for each of the watches of the same night, and it is also in great esparto baskets that she causes her tricked lovers to be packed by her servants. At the moment chosen by the sculptor we are in the midst of the Court: the king is seated on his throne, surrounded by his ministers, and at his right side one of the women of the harem is waving a fly-flapper. Amarā is standing on the other side, her left hand on the shoulder of her attendant, and at her order the covers of three of the baskets have already been raised and the heads of three of the delinquents uncovered, whilst two coolies bring the fourth." See Ibid., pl. V, 5; Cunningham, Stūpa of Barhut, pl. xxv, fig. 3.