Part 6

A pigeon was caught by a falcon, and the _Bodhisattva_ buys the poor animal’s liberty by offering the bird of prey a proportional part of his own flesh. This is the so-called _Syébi-jataka_.

Out of the 30 _relievoes_ belonging to the lower series of the _north-west_ corner, some 22 or 25 may refer to the _Rudrâyanavadana_. Passing the first 3 sculptures north of the western staircase we shall see on:

4. Rudrâyana, king of _Roruka_, consulting _Râyagriha_ merchants about the merits of their prince, Bimbisâra.

5. A king receives from a courtier a square sheet of paper or gives him this. It is Rudrâyana’s letter addressed to _Magadha_’s king. So the principal personage should be one of these two, but who knows which? It doesn’t appear after all.

6. A reception at the court of one of them in order to lend an ear to the bearers of the letter or to take their leaves. All round about a large dish, likely full of rice, we see some 20 smaller plates full of other eatables.

7. Bimbisâra receives the jewel-case Rudrâyana sent him with the letter.

8. In the midst we see the box containing the presents made in return all which _Magadha_’s king destined for his cousin of _Roruka_. The principal personage is Bimbisâra again, who gives, or Rudrâyana, who receives.

9. Bimbisâra gets a precious armour from Rudrâyana.

10. _Roruka_’s inhabitants on the occasion of the present’s arrival made in return by Bimbisâra; a drawing with a silhouette of the _Buddha_. The bearer is riding an elephant.

11. Almost on a part with 4, but now _Râjagriha_’s messengers are sounding the praise of the _Buddha_.

12. Rudrâyana requested the _Buddha_ for being instructed by a monk, and the Lord sent him Mahâkâtyâyana who now takes a higher seat next to the king. A declining gesture of the monk may refer to a refusal to preach the doctrine in the woman’s quarter. This ought to be done by a nun.

13. The nun Syailâ preaches before the king and his wives.

14. Such another representation but with a second nun standing behind Syailâ. In all likelihood an ordinator. In the king’s place we see a _third_ BHIKSYUNÎ who may be queen Tyandraprabhâ. Acquainted as she is with the circumstance that she won’t live much longer she got the king’s permission for being admitted into the order.

15. The queen, after death born again in heaven, descends to show the king the way for a reunion in the Great Beyond.

16. Rudrâyana communicates to his son Syikhanḍin his resolution to become a monk, and so to abdicate the throne in his son’s behalf.

17. At _Râyagriha_ the _Buddha_ consecrated Rudrâyana a _bhiksyu_, and on his first way as a mendicant friar he declines Bimbisâra’s rich offerings.

18. To the right we see how merchants from _Rudrâyana_’s country inform him Syikhanḍin’s bad behaviour. And to the left how the son is informed by his wicked ministers about his father’s return, and we then also see how he therefore forms a plan to have his father murdered. In the back-ground we see Syikhanḍin’s mother in her own palace.

19. Even this relievo is divided in two. To the right Syikhanḍin learns that his father has been killed, perhaps by the man with the long sword. And to the left he seeks comfort from his mother who frees him from the heavy burden of parricide by letting him know that Rudrâyana wasn’t really his father.

20. But the equally unpardonable murder of a _bhiksyu_, a saint, weighs heavily on the king. In order to free him from so great a debt they now pretend there are no saints. Deceivers are those who mean to be _arahats_. To the left we see two cats, each of them in a _stûpa_ of her own. They have been taught to answer to the names of the two first converts convinced by Mahâkâtyâyana, and to the right we see the queen-mother with her son who agrees with such sofisms.

21. To the right king Syikhanḍin in a sedan-chair. He tells his retinue to throw sand at the monk Mahâkâtyâyana. To the left the monk himself, released as he now is from the heap of sand, predicts _Roruka_’s downfall to the two good ministers Hiru and Bhiru.

22. From his palace the king is watching the rain of jewels which precedes the wicked storm of sand[58].

People jostle each other on catching up the treasures. In the foreground we see the two good ministers loading a boat with the mentioned riches.

23. Fate in fulfilment. _Roruka_ and almost all its inhabitants are buried under the sand. We see Mahâkâtyâyana on his home-journey in the village of _Khara_. Through the air the tutelary goddess of the destructed town followed him to that place, and the monk leaves her his begging cup over which a _stûpa_ will be built.

24. In the next stage, called _Lambaka_, the inhabitants offer the royalty to the monk’s disciple, Syâmaka, because of the wonder they saw, that is, that the shadow of the tree under which he took his seat, behaved to himself but didn’t follow the course of the sun.

25. In the third stage, named _Vokkâna_, the monk gives his mendicity to a woman, who in former life, had been his mother. Reason for the building of a new _stûpa_.

26, 27 and 28. A rural scene between two sea-pieces. On 27 we see a monk in a town fenced all around. Mahâkâtyâyana’s return in _Syrâvastî_. 26 and 28 represent Hiru’s and Bhiru’s disembarkment on the spots where they once will found the towns of _Hiruka_, and _Bhiruka_.

The 2 remaining panels, 29 and 30, relate the touching story of the two _kinnaras_ who could never forget that one day, 697 years ago, man and wife had been separated in their millennial life for a whole night because of a swollen river.

The king of _Bénarès_, one day hunting for game, surprised and listened to them. In the one relievo we see the prince hewn in a standing—in the other in a sitting posture, for the rest both the representations consecrated to the _kinnara-_ or _Bhalâtya-jâtaka_, have been hewn in the same manner.

These mythical beings I always called _gandharvas_ because they always represent birds provided with a human head and bust. I never saw them with a horse’s head like _kinnara’s_ have been described in Dowson’s _Classical Dictionary_.

With the exception of the _Maitrakanyakavadâna_, mentioned here-above, Foucher didn’t explain any other _relievo_ of the inferior series of the back wall at the _north-west_ corner, because we haven’t any data.

He also had no time necessary for a complete and decisive study of the sculptures we see on the 3 higher galleries. He only acknowledged their less historical or legendary sense but accepted their iconographic character. Some sculptures of the second gallery _I_ thought to be Hindu-gods represented as _Bodhisattvas_, _he_, on the other hand, thought they were _Avalokitésyvara_, and _Manjusyri_. This does correspond at last to my meaning because _Avalokitésyvara_ is nobody else but the deity Shiva, in this case Padmapâni, at the same time the fourth _Dhyâni-Bodhisattva_.

IX.

A short word about some sculptures we see on the three higher galleries. No double series are to be seen there, but the hewn panels, especially those of the back-walls of the second and fourth gallery, are a little higher, and have been partly modeled in an excellent style.

Wilsen’s and Leemans’ engravings are not always true representations of the sculptures themselves, f. i. no: 214 (W. L.) representing the unpardonably bad drawing of _Maitrakanyaka’s_ mother. But for professor Speyer’s acute observation she would have been never recognised perhaps, and this group would then have remained unexplained for ever, if this sculpture, and so many other ones, might happen to be ruined at all. Fortunately enough, I ordered this group to be photographed for about 4 years ago, and these photos can’t possibly lie[59].

The productions, formerly taken by Mr. van Kinsbergen to the cost of the Dutch Government, are beyond my reach, and so I’ve not been able to control whether this sculpture has been photographed or not. I think it was not.[60].

Let me mention another example of Wilsen’s inaccuracy, the _thirtieth_ sculpture we see on the back-wall of the _second_ gallery, and so much the more, because it might have been easily photographed. More than one expert did so, among others, in 1901 (in my presence) the known _Padang_ and _Atyèh_ photographer C. Nieuwenhuis. Comparing this photo with Wilsen’s drawing we shall perceive that the two inner-pilasters of the small temple have been wrongly drawn, and that the outer-pilasters, behind the standing women, have been _forgotten_; that the _prabha_ (glory) _behind_ the saint’s head, we see sitting _inside_ this small temple, impossibly goes upward before the upper-threshold of the entrance; and that the young lions and the throne’s carpet have been disfigured as well as the garlands and prayer-bells, both in form and placing. This also refers to the visitor’s parasol, and to the flower-offering we see near him. The second parrot, just above the right bodhi-tree, and one flower-piece to the right under this tree, have been wholly left out. This visitor’s hand _flatly_ folded for a _sĕmbah_ (salaam) has not been folded _flatly_, because the finger-tips only touch each other, so that the _sĕmbah_ itself is to be recognised no more. The right foot of this man the drawer also forgot[61].

It is not difficult to show such mistakes in other drawings of Wilsen’s; and I therefore suppose them not to be relied upon for the explanation of further particulars.

There where Wilsen copied monks (_bhiksyus_) he nearly always raised them to _Buddhas_ by decorating their clean-shaven heads with the hair-crown, the _tiara_ or _usynîsya!_ as if he, who didn’t even know the text the sculptor had followed, knew far better than the latter! And don’t we know how he, just like Ovid in his _Metamorphoses_, changed women into men or otherwise?

I further point to the above mentioned sculpture because of the worship of the _bodhi-tree_ characterised by parasols and _tyĕmaras_ (fly-flaps), rosettes and prayer-bells. Such fig-trees are still cultivated and honoured by all the _Ceylon_ (and elsewhere) pagodae even at this day, and in consequence of this worship by buddhistic ancestors the Sundas and Javanese always respect _kiaras_ and _wĕringins_ (_banyan-trees_) and other akin _Ficaceae_.

Such trees as we always see on the _alun-aluns_, the front-places of _kratons_ and _dalĕms_ of princes and native chiefs originally meant, I think, a recognition to _Buddha_’s fig-tree. The preacher and his doctrine are forgotten here in Java, but one of the forms of this worship still exists.

I mention the _eighteenth_ and the _twenty-second_ sculpture (eastern staircase, _fifth_ corner, 2 and _sixth_ corner, 1) because of the winged shell, the _syankha_, provided with _payongs_ and _tyĕmaras_ as a sign of dignity.

Even now Javanese princes carry the _tyåkrå_, the _trisulå_ and other weapons of deities in their _ampilan_[62], and so Vishnu’s _tyankra_ doesn’t mean that the person whom it is carried after, should refer to this deity, though it is true that the _Buddha_ of the _Mahâyânists_ must be this god’s _avatâra_.

Among the following imageries I more especially see Hindu-gods as Buddha’s predecessors. (_Bodhisattvas_).

The four-armed sculpture we see on 18 (_southern_ staircase, _fourth_ corner 5), in Buddha posture on a throne carried by a bull, the _nandi_, the _vâhana_ or Shiva’s carriage, makes us think, even without any other characteristic, of a _Bodhisattva_, perhaps. The lost head might have given more certainty.

Similar images we find on 100, 101, 102 and 104 W. L.[63].

On the first (_northern_ staircase, _second_ corner, 1) we see a four-armed sculpture on a lotus-throne in Buddha posture, with the glory, and in his left hand an elephant’s hook and a flower. The objects in his right hand are to be recognised no more. The throne itself has been adorned with elephants, lions and _nâgas_. The four arms near the single face may possibly refer to Vishnu or another deity, but not to Brahma which we see generally hewn four-faced: the small Buddha image in the crown only speaks of Buddhism[64].

And as Buddha, according to the northern church, had been Vishnu’s _avatâra_, this deity may by no means raise our astonishment because of his being represented here as a _Bodhisattva_.

Even the following sculpture (2 after the _second_ corner) has been hewn four-armed, but too badly damaged to be recognised as the deity it should represent.

This also refers to the third sculpture (3 after the corner). The _six_ arms may point to Shiva.

The fourth sculpture (5 after the same corner, W. L., 104) would not be easily recognised on Wilsen’s drawing. On the ruin itself however, there is no doubt whatever, because we here see clear enough that the _upavîta_ is nothing else but the _Cobra_ (snake) with a nicely modeled and crowned head. And this only speaks of Shiva or of his son Ganesha who has been always represented as an elephant or with an elephant’s head so that here he can’t be meant as such.

Another sculpture (W. L., 106, the _seventh_ after the _second_ corner) is still note-worthy, because the temple wherein it sits (_not_ on a lotus-cushion) has been crowned by five shivaïtic _trisyulas_. Should this be a _woman_’s image it then may represent a _Târâ_ or female deity, but it hasn’t any token to be recognised as Durgâ, the _syakti_ of Shiva[65].

Unique of its kind is the _sixty-ninth_ sculpture on the back-wall of the following, _third_, gallery (_northern_ staircase, _second_ corner, 2).

To the left we see a deity (a Bodhisattva, perhaps) in a temple crowned by _eleven trisyulas_. To the right such another deity (or greatness?) on a lower seat. Between these two stands a tree the branches of which don’t bear leaves or fruit, but swords and daggers. And beneath there we see a cauldron full of boiling contents hanging over a flaming fire. Next to this we see three (armed) men guarding three fettered prisoners who are likely to ask for mercy to the second, less great deity. It seems however, that one of the keepers is waiting for further instructions of the deity we see in the small temple.

The eleven _trisyulas_ make us think of Shiva again, perhaps as Kâla, the god of death, the all destroying _time_.

Leemans thought this representation should be connected with a particular event or, should refer, in a general sense, to hellish punishments. The last mentioned explanation seemed acceptable to me, but then when taken in a pure symbolical sense.

The king of _Siam_ simply called this a representation of hell. “Buddha _sees_ hell.”

We may leave the walled terraces after having seen two other sculptures we find on the back-wall of the fourth and highest gallery which has no more than 20 angles and hewn wall-panels.

First of all I’ll mention the _fifty-seventh_ sculpture (3 after the _northern_ staircase). There we see a Buddha throning in a temple upon which we see, to the right, a flaming _tyakra_ and, to the left, a _crescent of the moon_ floating in the air on lotus-cushions.

And last of all I’ll point to the _seventieth_ sculpture (_fifth_ corner 2), showing us a similar representation, but where the _tyakra_ has been replaced by the _disc of the sun_.[66]

One can’t possibly wish a more eloquent witness of the harmony of the _tyakra_ and _disc of the sun_, and of the connection there is between these celestial bodies and the _Buddha_, between _Buddha_ and _Vishnu_ or, in other words, between the _Buddha-_ and _sun-worship_.

For completeness’ sake I further mention that on the back-wall of this gallery are to be found many sculptures upon which more than _five_ till _seventeen_ Buddhas have been hewn in different postures (mudrâs). In my opinion the king of _Siam_ rightly observed that here can’t be meant any _Dhyâni_-Buddha.

Foucher gave us another reasonable explanation of these sculptures by connecting them with _Syrâvastî_’s _great wonder_ when the _Buddha_ covered all the heaven with the reflexions of his own body. For the sake of brevity I therefore refer to that which has been mentioned hereabout in my “_Oudheidkundige Aanteekeningen_” IV, p. 42 and 44.

It only remains for me now to speak a few words about the relievoes major van Erp recognised to be _jâtaka_-representations guided as he was by the text of the great work of Mr. Cowell’s and contributors.

In the lower series on the front-wall of the _first_ gallery we see, on the second sculpture south of the eastern staircase, the _Bodhisattva_ ploughing his field as a farmer. Performing this task he suddenly finds a treasure the fourth part of which he presents the needy. (W. L., engraving CXXXVI). This is the _Kanytyanakhandhajâtaka_.

In the upper series on the very same wall van Erp thought the last of the 4 sculptures, after the _fourth_ corner west of the southern staircase, to be another _Sigala-jâtaka_. In imitation of professor Speyer’s however, I described this as the _jâtaka_’s conclusion, the starving _sparrow_ asking the lion for a little bit of the prey he killed shortly before. (W. L.’s engraving CLXX).

And in 5 _relievoes_ on the same front-wall, but on the northern side of the ruin (not engraved in L’s) he meant he saw the _Mora-jâtaka_, where the _Bodhisattva_, caught as a peacock by the hunter of the king of _Bénarès_, teaches the doctrine to the prince.

Another _jâtaka_ has been still mentioned in Leemans’ (Engraving CLXXXIII, and CLXXXIV and 3 other ones), where the _Bodhisattva_ died a monkey when he sacrificed his life for the sake of his blind mother. His younger brother did likewise all which can’t prevent the hunter from shooting down even the mother-monkey after having first killed the two others.

It is the _Syula-Nandiya-jâtaka_ in which the wicked hunter is being severely punished.

According to the pâli-text the _Buddha_ himself related that this former hunter afterwards became his wicked nephew Devadatta; his younger brother-monkey Ananda, and that their blind mother was afterwards reincarnated in his step- and foster-mother Gotamî[67].

Van Erp gives us at last an explanation of another _relievo_ we see on the lower series of the same wall, but this hasn’t been engraved in Leemans’ work either. Consulting the ground-plan we come across number 120 which refers to the panel it has been sculptured upon. Van Erp possesses a photography of this.

It corresponds pretty well to the relievoes I described as 11 and 12 of the upper series behind the second corner south of the eastern staircase, because in the two jâtakas the _Bodhisattva_ represents a hare who flings herself into a fire to feed a hungry traveller; in this _Syasya-jâtaka_ however, the mentioned hungry man does not represent the deity Indra but rather a _risyi_ or anachorete, who rescues the hare out of the flames as well as Indra did.

I further mention that each of the terraces under foot lies about 3 yards higher than the preceding one, and communicates with each other by staircases of about 10 treads on an average.

Further, that each gallery between the walls is about 2 yards wide, and that these walls have a thickness of 1½ yard.

And finally, that there are among the architectural ornaments, I didn’t mention, numerous _nâga_-heads with opened mules and upward curled trunks which _formerly_ carried off the rain-water (from under all these walls) to outside from terrace to terrace. _Nowadays_ this water permeates through the time-worn stones into the rather loose soil of the hill till _under_ the ruin. Dropping through all lower joints, and between the stones falling asunder more and more upon which the heavy stûpa has been built, it _can’t be otherwise_ or all this is to destroy the ruin more and more, and sooner or later there will come a time when the temple itself shall partly or wholly fall to the ground, ... when the Dutch Government don’t know to prevent this by _doing all that will be indisputably necessary_.

And as it is a truth not to be denied that _solar heat_ and _rain-water_ are the two prevailing factors to cause the destruction of these and other ruins the only way to prevent all this _must_ be therefore found by _shutting out_ solar-heat and rain, that is, by means of a protecting _cover_ such as drawn up and offered to the Dutch Government by Mr. van de Kamer. Any other manner of “restoration” will turn out to be a failure even when one may succeed in joining together all loose stones, and in cementing all the gaps. For the stone itself (_andesit_-lava) is so very porous that is used anywhere in Java for filtering-stones.

However, it doesn’t alter the fact that there will be no much chance that the Dutch Government will do what I also recommended her as the only thing needful.[68] The late Dr. _Brandes_, the first official president of the “_Oudheidkundige Kommissie voor Java en Madoera_” had proposed a far less sovereign but cheaper effort to the rectification of this sorrowful state of things, and even the authorities in Netherland concurred with this idea of his, though they would be inclined to think quite otherwise if they could _unprejudicedly_ examine this question _in loco_. And the newly appointed president, the competent scholar and great authority on Indian matters, shall _he_ think otherwise?[69]. Or will the rain-water continually permeate through and under the invaluable ruin, and carry away its bottom, and assure at last the ruin of the richest and most beautiful Hindu-work of art we possess, which, in all India and even in the mainland, speaks of the Buddha?... Should we then, as a civilised colonising power, not be worthy of such a treasure?

Oh, could I only persuade the Indian and Dutch authorities into _willing_ and _acting_ in quite another and better sense!

The major of the Indian engineer corps, Mr. van Erp, did everything he could, notwithstanding the limited means the Dutch Government allowed him to dispose of, and he consequently co-operated to the preservation of this precious ruin for a longer or shorter period of time. But this is not yet enough. Granting the means of our (Dutch) small empire to be too feeble to such a purpose—why then not try to form a _Båråbudur-Society_ like the French founded a _Société d’Angkor_ in behalf of the ruins of _Kamboja_, which not only found support from the side of fellow-country-men in Europe and Farther-India or anywhere else, but also from foreigners?

X.

Finding ourselves on the fourth gallery we see there twelve-treaded staircases leading to the twenty-angled upper plane which had been walled in to its outside only. Successively (concentrically thus) we see there three circular terraces continually rising one yard and a half, declining three yards, and connected with each other by means of seven or eight-treaded staircases.

Along the outer-edge of the first we see stand 32 open worked _dagobs_ or _tyaityas_; on the second there are 24, and on the third and highest 16, so altogether 72. And within this circle rises the majestic middledagob as the _only real dagob_ or _stûpa_ representing the leading idea, the final purpose of the whole ruin.