Avadāna, the Traditions about the Bodhisattva

Avadāna, the Traditions about the Bodhisattva, Level 1, Inner Wall at Borobudur

Divyavadana, North Wall, Panel 89 of 120, Bhallatiya

We may say, furthermore, that the two last panels of this portion of the gallery Panels 89 & 90 are likewise duplicates. The only appreciable difference is that the same prince is standing on the first to overhear and seated on the second to listen to the discourse of the same pair of Kinnaras. Such is, in fact, the name that we do not hesitate to give to the human phenomena, who are related to the Gandharvas by their musical talents and who are represented here with birds' wings and feet. The Buddhist art of India and the Far East seems to have taken no account whatever of the concurrent tradition which claims that the Kinnaras are human monsters with horses' heads. When it has not been considered more suitable to give them, as above in the illustration of the Sudhanakumara legend, a purely anthropomorphic aspect, it is usually a kind of harpy that is represented under this name. This strange combination of the bust of a man or a woman, with or without arms, grafted on to the body of a bird, is found almost everywhere. It fits as well into the corners of the pediments of the temple of Martand in Kashmir as into those of the metopes of the Prambanan temple in Java. It has continued to be especially frequent in the decorative and religious art of Siam. In India proper it appears in the paintings of Ajanta; and we have remarked elsewhere, in a sculpture inscribed on the"Tower of Victory" at Chitor (XVth Century),"a double pair of Kinnaras", perfectly analogous to those of Borobudur. Perhaps, under the Kinnarajataka rubric, they were not otherwise treated even on the old railing of Barhut : unfortunately we can only judge of this by a wretched sketch from a half-broken stone, and there is at present nothing to prove that, as Cunningham suggests, the leaves, or the feathers, which terminate the busts of the two monsters, must have separated their human trunks from their bird legs.

Divyavadana, North Wall, Panel 89 of 120, Bhallatiya (detail, left)

A pair of kinnaras.

Divyavadana, North Wall, Panel 90 of 120, Bhallatiya

We consider ourselves none the less authorized by this inscription to consider the two Panels 89 & 90 as a replica of this same jataka : what other justification can be given for the edifying character of these scenes and for their introduction into the series? Certainly the subject is once again borrowed from one of the previous lives of the Master : the only question is exactly which"re-birth" is concerned. Here the two prolix pictures of Borobudur will be of assistance in determining retroactively the real identification of the bas-relief of Barhut, so poor in details. It is here quite clear, for example, that the scene of the adventure is a rocky solitude : we must at once put aside a certain episode in the Takkariyajataka (no. 481) since it takes place in a royal court, where two Kinnaras, put in to a cage, refuse to display their talents. Moreover, we cannot fix upon the Candakinnarajataka (no. 485), although that too has for scenery a piece of jungle : for our king is evidently not thinking of killing the male Kinnara, in order to get possession of the female. It therefore remains for us to adopt the Bhallatiyajataka (no. 504), in which also we have nothing but conversations in a mountainous district. It is a most touching love story. The king of Benares, while out hunting, surprises in the depth of the wood the extraordinary behaviour of two of these marvellous beings, and enquires why they cover each other alternately with tears and caresses. He learns that 697 years ago they were separated for one single night by the sudden swelling of a river; and in their life of a thousand years the loving couple have never yet been able to forget this cruel separation, or to console each other entirely for those few hours irremediably lost to their happiness. It will be observed on Panel 90 that the sculptor has considered it his duty to maintain the hierarchical order, and has placed the male in front of the female, as if he were the interlocutor of the king: but in the text of the jataka, just as in the famous Dantesque episode of Francesca di Rimini, it is the woman, always the more ready to speak, who relates their common adventure, whilst her lover stands silent by her side.