Once a Peacock, Once an Actress: Twenty-Four Lives of the Bodhisattva from Haribhatta's "Jatakamala"

By Haribhatta and Peter Khoroche

Written in Kashmir around 400 CE, Haribhatta’s Jåtakamåla is a remarkable example of classical Sanskrit literature in a mixture of prose and verse that for centuries was known only in its Tibetan translation. But between 1973 and 2004 a large portion of the Sanskrit original was rediscovered in a number of anonymous manuscripts. With this volume Peter Khoroche offers the most complete translation to date, making almost 80 percent of the work available in English.
 
Haribhatta’s Jåtakamålå is a sophisticated and personal adaptation of popular stories, mostly non-Buddhist in origin, all illustrating the future Buddha’s single-minded devotion to the good of all creatures, and his desire, no matter what his incarnation—man, woman, peacock, elephant, merchant, or king—to assist others on the path to nirvana. Haribhatta’s insight into human and animal behavior, his astonishing eye for the details of landscape, and his fine descriptive powers together make this a unique record of everyday life in ancient India as well as a powerful statement of Buddhist ethics. This translation will be a landmark in the study of Buddhism and of the culture of ancient India.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Release date: Aug 30, 2017
• ISBN: 9780226486017

Book preview

Once a Peacock, Once an Actress

Once a Peacock, Once an Actress

Twenty-Four Lives of the Bodhisattva from Haribhaṭṭa’s JĀTAKAMĀLĀ

Haribhaṭṭa

Translated by Peter Khoroche

The University of Chicago Press   •   Chicago & London

The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637

The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London

© 2017 by The University of Chicago

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews. For more information, contact the University of Chicago Press, 1427 East 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637.

Published 2017

Printed in the United States of America

26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17    1 2 3 4 5

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-48582-9 (cloth)

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-48596-6 (paper)

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-48601-7 (e-book)

DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226486017.001.0001

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Haribhaṭṭa, author. | Khoroche, Peter, translator.

Title: Once a peacock, once an actress : twenty-four lives of the Bodhisattva from Haribhaṭṭa’s Jātakamālā / Haribhaṭṭa ; translated from the Sanskrit by Peter Khoroche.

Description: Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017005395 | ISBN 9780226485829 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780226485966 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780226486017 (e-book)

Subjects: LCSH: Gautama Buddha—Pre-existence. | Jataka stories. | Buddhist literature, Sanskrit—Translations into English.

Classification: LCC BQ1463.E5 K46 2017 | DDC 294.3/82325—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017005395

This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

Contents

Preface

Introduction

PROLOGUE

1  KING PRABHĀSA. King Prabhāsa vows to become a Buddha

2  JUJUBE ISLAND. As the merchant Supriya, the Bodhisattva gains the jewel that grants all wishes

3  DHARMAKĀMA. As Dharmakāma, the Bodhisattva barters his life for a wise saying

4  THE HARE. As a hare, the Bodhisattva offers his life to feed another

5  KING CANDRAPRABHA. As King Candraprabha, the Bodhisattva gives his head to one who begs for it

6  RŪPYĀVATĪ. As Rūpyāvatī, the Bodhisattva cuts off her breasts to feed a starving servant-girl

7  THE MERCHANT’S SON. As a merchant’s son, the Bodhisattva feeds his body to animals

8  KING PADMAKA. As King Padmaka, the Bodhisattva turns into a carp to cure his subjects of disease

9  KING BRAHMADATTA. As King Brahmadatta, the Bodhisattva gives away his food ration in time of famine

11  THE DEER. As a deer, the Bodhisattva offers himself to the king’s butchers in place of a pregnant doe

12  THE PEACOCK. As a peacock, the Bodhisattva saves a queen from adultery

14  ŚYĀMA. As Śyāma, the Bodhisattva devotes himself to his blind parents

19  THE ELEPHANT. As an elephant, the Bodhisattva helps the hunter who is sent to kill him

20  PRINCE CANDRA. As Prince Candra, the Bodhisattva shows forbearance to the minister who wants him killed

22  THE ANTELOPE. As an antelope, the Bodhisattva sacrifices his life to save his herd from extinction

23  PRINCE KANAKAVARMAN. As Prince Kanakavarman, the Bodhisattva rescues his sister and her lover from the king’s wrath and conquers the goblins who have laid waste a foreign land

24  MŪLIKA. As Mūlika, a gatherer of medicinal herbs, the Bodhisattva nurses an ailing Pratyekabuddha

25  SUDHANA AND THE FAIRY PRINCESS. As Prince Sudhana, the Bodhisattva undergoes many trials to be reunited with his fairy wife

26  JĀJVALIN. As the ascetic Jājvalin, the Bodhisattva finds that a dove has nested on his head while he has been meditating. He waits until her chicks are fully fledged before moving

27  KEŚAVA. As Keśava, a doctor, the Bodhisattva cures a madwoman

29  NIRUPAMĀ. As Nirupamā, an actress, the Bodhisattva cures an actor of lust

32  THE LION. As a lion, the Bodhisattva saves the lives of two little monkeys entrusted to him

33  ŚAKRA. As Śakra, lord of the gods, the Bodhisattva resuscitates a dead elephant calf

34  ŚYENAKA. As Śyenaka, a king’s minister, the Bodhisattva renounces the world and reforms the king

Notes

References

Preface

In this translation of a substantial portion of Haribhaṭṭa’s Jātakamālā, my aim has been to share a remarkable work of Sanskrit literature with non-Sanskritists and with those interested in the Buddhist world of ancient India. I have tried to make it as readable as the differences in language, literary convention, and mindset will allow and am very grateful, once again, to Margaret Cone for helping me in this and incidentally saving me from a number of errors. I must also thank Shrikant Bahulkar for elucidating several passages that had baffled me.

I have translated all the jātakas for which at least half of the original Sanskrit text is now accessible (see p. 2), basing it on the forthcoming revised and expanded edition of Hahn 2011, which will include all of Haribhaṭṭa’s original work at present available (about 78 percent of the whole). I owe a great debt of thanks to Martin Straube for allowing me to participate in the editing process as well as for many helpful suggestions, most of which I have gladly adopted, and trust he will forgive me for occasionally preferring alternative readings and interpretations.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge the help I received from Michael Hahn himself. Over a period of twenty-five years he generously shared with me his progress in editing the work that he rediscovered.

Introduction

Rediscovery

The first announcement to the Western world of a Jātakamālā written by Haribhaṭṭa, an otherwise unknown author, appeared in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1904. In one of a series of notes on the Tibetan Tanjur, F. W. Thomas drew attention to the mid-twelfth-century Tibetan translation of this work, commenting rather superciliously that the detailed examination of this probably not uninteresting work may be left to those who devote special attention to this class of writings. Clearly he assumed that Haribhaṭṭa’s original version in Sanskrit (henceforth abbreviated as HJM) was irretrievably lost. At any rate he was not the man to go in search of it.

It was left to Prof. Michael Hahn of the University of Bonn to take up Thomas’s invitation after a lapse of seventy years. Hahn, equally at home in Sanskrit and Tibetan and a specialist in Buddhist literature, was also closely involved in the Nepal-German Manuscript Preservation Project, which had been set up in 1970. He was thus uniquely qualified to identify (between 1973 and 1976) the Sanskrit versions of ten of Haribhaṭṭa’s jātaka stories in three anonymous jātaka miscellanies preserved in unpublished Nepalese paper manuscripts, dating from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries.¹ Between 1977 and 1992 he edited and published five of these jātakas (Hahn 1977, Hahn and Klaus 1983, and Hahn 1992), finally publishing all ten together in 2007 (Hahn 2007).

Meanwhile, in 2004, Hahn received from a colleague photostat copies of an incomplete palm-leaf manuscript of HJM (of unknown provenance but presumably from Tibet), containing 70 percent of the text. Though undated, it is older than and superior to the Nepalese manuscripts, which it partially overlaps.²

In 2011 Hahn published an edition of seventeen jātakas based on MS A (the best of the Nepalese manuscripts, probably dating from the sixteenth century) and this palm-leaf MS B (thirteenth/fourteenth century?) as well as on the Tibetan translation. Thus half of the thirty-four jātakas of HJM were finally rescued from oblivion.

The complete work is made up of thirty-four stories as follows:

1. Prabhāsa

2. Badaradvīpa

3. Dharmakāma

4. Śaśa

5. Candraprabha

6. Rūpyāvatī

7. Śreṣṭhin

8. Padmaka

9. Brahmadatta‡

10. Hitaiṣin*

11. Mṛga 1

12. Mayūra

13. Ṛṣi*

14. Śyāma‡

15. Ṛṣipañcaka*

16. Kāśisundara†

17. Tāpasa*

18. Priyapiṇḍa†

19. Hastin

20. Candra

21. Dardara*

22. Mṛga 2

23. Kanakavarman

24. Mūlika

25. Kinnarīsudhana‡

26. Jājvalin

27. Keśava‡

28. Padaka†

29. Nirupamā‡

30. Ādarśamukha†

31. Yayāti*

32. Siṃha

33. Śakra‡

34. Śyenaka

* Sanskrit at present lost; † over 50 percent at present lost; ‡ portions at present missing.

The Author

All that we know about Haribhaṭṭa is the tantalizingly little he tells us in the brief prologue to his Jātakamālā ("Anthology (mālā) of stories-about-the-[previous]-births (jātaka) [of the Buddha]), which, assuming he wrote others, is the only work of his to survive. An additional stanza in the Tibetan translation reads: Having once mastered logic, grammar and divers arts as well as the sayings of the Buddha, Haribhaṭṭa, that moon among latter-day poets, illuminated the earth with the rays of his poetry. Then, suffering remorse for the grievous harm he had done in Kashmir, he sought exile but gave up his life in the Himalaya and entered heaven. This tradition may or may not be true. Haribhaṭṭa may have been a native of Kashmir—the colophon of the Tibetan translation calls him son of a king" (rgyal po’i sras) and teacher (slob dpon)—but the fact that some of his stories take place in north or northwest India cannot be taken as corroborative evidence, since this region is a common background for jātaka stories in general. His allusion, in verse 8 of the prologue, to his tongue having long been sullied with misdirected praise and to his having now attained to the teaching of the Sage (i.e., the Buddha) suggests, as does his name Doctor Hari, that he was a convert to Buddhism. His reference, in verse 2, to Ārya Śūra, disclaiming any possible rivalry with his great predecessor, gives us a terminus a quo for his life, or would do if we could be more certain of Śūra’s dates. Various considerations make it probable that Śūra flourished in the early fourth century. Hahn (1981) has demonstrated that six verses of Haribhaṭṭa’s Prabhāsajātaka (= HJM 1) are quoted almost verbatim in the Chinese Sūtra of the Wise and the Foolish (Xianyujing), a compilation of stories, of Indian Buddhist origin, made by Chinese monks in Central Asia in 445 AD. It would therefore be reasonable to suppose that Haribhaṭṭa flourished ca. 400 AD.

The Work

(a) Its Genre

Both Haribhaṭṭa’s Jātakamālā and that of his model, Ārya Śūra, belong to a literary genre of mixed verse and prose that came to be called campū. There is no knowing whether or not this form might have been influenced by the combination of prose and verse in the oldest surviving Indian dramas (also on Buddhist themes). The earliest campū are Buddhist (the oldest extant Hindu and Jain specimens date from the tenth century) but survive only in fragments. These are Kumāralāta’s Kalpanāmaṇḍitikā Dṛṣṭāntapaṅkti (mid-second century) and Saṅghasena’s *Jātakamālā (third century).³ The only such work to have survived in its entirety is Ārya Śūra’s Jātakamālā (early fourth century). At present about 80 percent of Haribhaṭṭa’s Jātakamālā is available but at least one manuscript containing the whole work is known to have survived in Tibet⁴ and one can only hope that it will not be too long before it resurfaces. One further Jātakamālā, written by Gopadatta in the eighth century, only partially extant and of lesser quality, completes the tally at present.

In varying degrees each of these works is a literary reworking of widely known stories, not all of them Buddhist in origin, intended at least as much to entertain as to edify, and aimed, evidently, at an educated audience, capable of appreciating verbal artistry, psychological finesse, and poetic embellishment. They belong to the broad category of kāvya, the most sophisticated genre of Sanskrit literature, which includes plays and stories in prose as well as poetry, and should not be classed with the comparatively artless jātaka stories of the Pali canon. To be fair to Prof. Thomas, who had only the clumsy Tibetan translation to judge it by, he could not have known that the original HJM was a masterpiece of classical Sanskrit literature.

In campū verse and prose diversify and complement each other, together forming a poetic whole. The principles on which they are intermixed cannot be precisely formulated but, broadly speaking, descriptive passages are in prose, while didactic homilies are in verse; narrative and conversation can be in prose or verse. While the descriptions in prose tend to consist of a string of long, elaborate compounds (especially in HJM), the verse, in both Śūra’s and Haribhaṭṭa’s hands, is notably clear and elegant, with only a moderate use of wordplay and sound effects. Though Haribhaṭṭa avails himself of at least thirty different meters, it is not often clear why he chooses a particular meter in a particular context (see, however, Hahn and Klaus 1983, 22–23; and Hahn 2011, 43–44). Nor is there any difference in register or vocabulary between prose and verse: sometimes prose runs into verse in mid-sentence, forming a single syntactic unit. For these reasons it is wrongheaded, when translating, to distinguish the verse portions from the prose by printing them as though they were blank verse. Besides being visually distracting, it arouses expectations which, because of the peculiar function of verse in the original Sanskrit, are inappropriate.

(b) Its Purpose

A subtitle, or alternative title, of jātakamālā is bodhisattvāvadānamālā anthology of stories about the outstanding deeds of the Bodhisattva (the future Buddha). The purpose of these anthologies is to illustrate the Bodhisattva’s single-minded devotion to the good of all creatures. The Bodhisattva, as his name indicates, strives for the enlightenment of a Buddha (1.43 bodhau vinibaddhaniścayo) but also, in each of his incarnations, helps others to nirvana. Central to the message of jātaka stories, and intimately bound up with the Bodhisattva ideal, are the six pāramitās. Usually translated as perfection, pāramitā, more accurately if more clumsily, denotes the extreme or exceptional practice (of a virtue). Thus dāna-pāramitā is the extreme practice of generosity, generosity taken to the extreme—that is, far beyond the capacity of the ordinary human being. Only if we understand this taking of virtue to its extreme limit both as a sign of the Bodhisattva’s extraordinary nature and as a standard to which ordinary people may distantly aspire, can the actions of King Candraprabha, who gave his head to a worthless Brahman, of Rūpyāvatī, who cut off her breasts to feed a starving servant girl, or of the merchant’s son, who fed his body parts to animals, seem anything other than insensate and pointless. In these stories the Bodhisattva’s role is to exemplify the dānapāramitā. At 6.27, in his incarnation as Rūpyāvatī, he is, in fact, said to be the very embodiment of extreme generosity.

To judge from the complete work in its Tibetan translation, HJM illustrates all six pāramitās as follows: nos. 1–11 generosity (dāna) often to the point of self-sacrifice, nos. 12–17 moral integrity (śīla), nos. 18–21 forbearance (kṣānti), nos. 22–25 valor (vīrya), no. 26 meditation (dhyāna), and nos. 27–34 understanding (prajñā). But some stories illustrate the pāramitā more clearly and forcefully than others and in some the Bodhisattva ideal of self-sacrifice for the good of others is barely more than a formality. The story of Prince Sudhana and the fairy, for instance, is essentially a romance. The hero’s overcoming of obstacles in the quest for his beloved may prove his determination (vyavasāya in verses 237 and 238) but hardly illustrates the Buddhist virtue of valor (vīrya) on behalf of others. Indeed, it is only at a late stage of the story (verse 191+) that Sudhana is suddenly and jarringly identified with the Bodhisattva. True, he does inveigh against sensual pleasure (verse 170+), in accordance with the motto at the head of the story, but he nonetheless continues his search for Manoharā on the grounds that she might die of sorrow at their separation: he says he realizes that sensual pleasure can never make one happy, but doesn’t want to be the cause of Manoharā’s death and is therefore seeking her more out of pity. This is casuistical and goes against the whole drift of the story. Similarly, Prince Kanakavarman’s exploits, which end in his getting married and ruling a kingdom, are only loosely related to the practice of a Bodhisattva (bodhisattvacaryā). In these two instances the Bodhisattva ideal seems to have been grafted, somewhat unconvincingly, onto stories that originally had no moral content, Buddhist or otherwise. Clearly it mattered to Haribhaṭṭa that his stories should be entertaining, surprising, and moving, in addition to their being edifying.

(c) Its Character

Though he denied the possibility of emulating Śūra, Haribhaṭṭa nonetheless took his predecessor’s Jātakamālā (henceforth AJM) as a model for his own but without slavishly imitating it. His work, in deference to Śūra’s, is composed of thirty-four jātakas (thus, incidentally, confirming the likelihood that AJM is complete as it stands). Likewise his stories vary in length and are written in the campū form. It is estimated, though, that the complete HJM would be half as long again as AJM. Thirty of the thirty-four jātakas in AJM keep close to versions in the Pali jātaka collection, whereas in HJM, though a few stories have parallels in Pali, mostly the sources and analogues are diverse, and in every case Haribhaṭṭa’s retelling is a strikingly new and personal adaptation.⁵ Since Haribhaṭṭa selected different material from Śūra, it is not possible to make a close comparison between the two authors’ treatment of the same story.

As one would expect, Haribhaṭṭa develops and elaborates Śūra’s procedures but without any radical departure from them. Like Śūra, he writes grammatically faultless Sanskrit and draws on a rich vocabulary, some of it rarely attested elsewhere, some, obviously, peculiar to Buddhist Sanskrit. His lucid style, so unforced that the artistry behind it may pass unnoticed, recalls his contemporary, Kālidāsa, with whom he shares a number of verbal expressions and rhetorical devices (whether by coincidence or not remains to be investigated).

Despite his disclaimer, Haribhaṭṭa has nothing to fear from comparison with his master, Ārya Śūra: it is simply that their works differ in character. What makes Haribhaṭṭa’s writing entirely individual is his outstanding power of description. He has a painter’s eye for visual detail and the many references he makes to painting, throughout his work, suggest that, like Wang Wei in T’ang China, he was a painter as well as a poet, besides being a devout Buddhist.⁶ This loving notation of observed detail is all pervasive: it may be limited to a single touch or it may evoke a whole scene or mood by an accumulation of such touches (as, for instance, the unsettling atmosphere of wild countryside at 1.18+). Sometimes the minuteness of the detail is like a cinematic close-up, as at 34.62 where, in a description of horses slowly drawing a chariot, our attention is drawn not only to the muffled sound of their hooves and to the quivering tips of their head-plumes but also to the very fine threads of spittle [that] dripped onto the middle of the road. Haribhaṭṭa takes particular delight in the description of animals—their behavior, their psychology, their physical characteristics. For him a lion is not merely the conventional king of beasts and especially not when he happens to be an incarnation of the Bodhisattva. In the story of the lion who is asked to babysit a couple of little monkeys, while their parents go off to forage for food (HJM 32), we are introduced to a gentle, good-natured, anxiously responsible, vegetarian, whose quiet life is disrupted by the two naughty pranksters in his charge but who patiently puts up with them and, in a crisis, uses all his powers of persuasion to save their lives. Haribhaṭṭa also notes how the lion’s pink palate is revealed when he yawns; how his mane hangs down, dripping wet, as he emerges from a pond; and how the grass in front of his cave is flattened by the tread of his paws. He depicts the little monkeys with the same observant eye but also with humor and loving sympathy, so that we are sorry to see the last of them as they hang on tightly to their parents’ shoulders and look back at their friend, the lion. Nor is the observation only visual: for instance, the creak of city gates swinging open at dawn is likened to the cry of ospreys at 7.36+. Sometimes a striking image enhances a simile, as at 1.16, where a runaway elephant, bearing the king on its back, left a white track in his wake, so that the king’s retainers, galloping behind, could hardly see him, like people on shore peering at a ship driven before the wind. Even the familiar topoi of drought and famine, dawn, evening, storm, forest, cremation ground, Himalaya, a city en fête, hell, and the seasons of the year are freshly treated. All the extended descriptions occur in the clusters of long compounds that form the prose portion of the stories until verse is resumed and the narrative advances. It can sometimes seem as though Haribhaṭṭa were more interested in description and dramatic effect than in storytelling. But this tendency is characteristic of all kāvya, whether in prose or verse, and was calculated to appeal to the sophisticated audience for whom it was written. As with Hellenistic literature in the third and second centuries BC, the new and individual treatment of the story mattered at least as much to its audience as the content, with which it was already familiar.

There is evidence that Haribhaṭṭa’s retellings were well known both inside India and beyond. The paintings in cave 17 at Ajanta illustrate his version of the Elephant jātaka (HJM 19);⁷ Ṛddhiprabhāva’s Khotanese version of the Sudhana romance (= HJM 25) appears to reflect Haribhaṭṭa’s in some details; two fragments in Tocharian, dating from between the sixth and eighth centuries, come from a translation of the Rūpyāvatī jātaka (HJM 6); the Lion jātaka (HJM 32) underlies a fragment of a bilingual Uighur/Sanskrit manuscript, dating from some time between the ninth and thirteenth centuries; and the earliest surviving traces of HJM, two fragments dating to the seventh or eighth century, were found in Afghanistan. It is only by a caprice of fate that Haribhaṭṭa’s masterpiece should have been hidden from us for so many centuries. Those able to read it in the original and appreciate it at an aesthetic level are likely to find this rediscovery of comparable interest and importance to that, a century ago, of the Trivandrum plays.

Prologue

[1] Hail to the Sage who, by virtue of possessing every moral perfection, reached nirvana, to the despair of Kāma.⁸ With the bright aura of his immaculate goodness he serves as a beacon amid the darkness of delusion.

[2] No other writer can match the jātaka stories composed by the teacher Śūra.⁹ Only the moon can do what all the stars together cannot do: awaken the lotuses that bloom in the night.¹⁰

[3] I know too that great poets, whose poetry reaches a wide audience, are steeped in the scriptures. But even so, I, whose only merit is the desire to improve myself, have resorted to words in order to proclaim the deeds of the Bodhisattva.

[4] If people laugh at my work, what harm is there in that? If they call it impudence, let them do so to their hearts’ content. Someone intent on bettering himself and devoted to goodness should be prepared to suffer anything.

[5] In the course of recounting the Buddha’s deeds before he was born as Śuddhodana’s son,¹¹ I will surely become adept at celebrating his wonderful virtues. With a mind unencumbered, thanks to the fluency gained through constant practice, does the artist not draw a lovely form?

[6] A man cannot achieve anything worthwhile in thought, word, or deed if he is lazy-minded. A bee may visit many flowers, but will not sip the nectar of their blooms unless it makes the effort.

[7] Even a modest description of the Buddha’s virtues is of service. With that in mind, what poet would relax his efforts? Seeing much to be gained at little expense, a wise man would be wrong to delay making his purchase.

[8] My tongue has long been sullied with misdirected praise,¹² but now that I have somehow attained to man’s estate and to the teaching of the Sage, which dispels darkness, I will cleanse it with the waters of the Buddha’s marvelous deeds.

A preacher first expounds a saying of the Buddha then, as if lighting up a picture gallery with a lamp, illuminates it further by recounting a jātaka of the Bodhisattva, and thereby fills the minds of his audience with enormous joy. With this in view, the audience should shake off sloth and torpor, pay attention and, as though with a thirst for nectar, relish the recital of a deed of the Lord Buddha, who made the momentous vow to banish the unending ills suffered by beings born in the three states of existence,¹³ so that the misery of countless rebirths should cease.

1

King Prabhāsa

[1] None but the noble-hearted make the momentous vow to become a Buddha so as to rescue the world from the hell of repeated existences, that snake pit, which teems with every sort of affliction.

According to tradition there was in the past a capital city called Prabhāvatī, resplendent as the sky when adorned by the unblemished autumn moon and its host of stars. Parks that were always in bloom graced its outskirts and in between the houses colonnades encrusted with gems and gold enhanced the lanes, the crossings and the markets bustling with an endless throng of people. And in it, like a jewel of immaculate splendor in the necklace of his wife, the entire earth, lived King Prabhāsa.

[2] As they adorned themselves, the women in his palace could see their ear-ornaments and the vermilion beauty marks on their foreheads reflected in its walls of pure crystal: their tender hands were spared the trouble of holding up a mirror. [3] His relatives saw him in the role of a cloud, making the seeds of his merit sprout with the water of his gifts, while even his most powerful foes could not withstand his fury that in an instant flashed out like lightning.

One day the king, preeminent in wealth as in prowess, was seated on his throne, both sides of which were inset with thousands of flawless jewels. He looked like the sun resting on the peak of the eastern mountain. A host of Brahmans, neighboring rulers, ministers, and emissaries was seated according to rank, while the doorkeepers barred ordinary people who aroused their suspicion. Elephants, horses, and chariots were tethered outside.

As the king surveyed this gathering, some woodsmen turned up and were ushered in. Kneeling on the ground and stammering in awe—such was their natural simplicity—they gabbled out their news: [4] "We’ve seen an elephant, white¹⁴ as a bed of water lilies, one of a herd, deep in the mountains. He looks like the top of Himalaya when its bottom is hidden by a mass of fresh clouds. Now it is for Your Majesty to decide if he is to be captured."

With the onset of autumn the king felt a growing eagerness to capture the elephant.¹⁵ As he passed the fields that bordered towns and villages, he could hear the roots of nut grass and couch grass crack as the ploughshare tore them up. When the girls guarding the fields clapped their hands and snapped their fingers, parrots flew up in fright and the flapping of their wings shook the awns of the ripe brown rice. Crows nervously hopped close to some ploughmen being waited upon by women, who had brought them their meal. A herd of buffalo cows stood ruminating in the muddy water of a pond and kept the flies from settling by twitching their muzzles. The tinkle of bells shaken by a grazing herd of cows could be heard. Herons, greylags, and pairs of shelduck entangled themselves with the lotus stalks in the paddy fields. A white parasol sheltered the king on his royal chariot from the heat of the sun’s rays until at last he entered the mountain forest where the many herds of deer scattered in fright at his retinue, whose horses crushed the grass under their hooves.

[5] From afar the king saw the lord of the elephants standing in the midst of his herd, crushing an incense tree, which gave off a powerful scent. With an occasional flap of his ears he scattered the swarm of bees that hovered near the streaks of must-juice on his temples. Let us see this lord of elephants do battle with one of our own rutting elephants, thought Prabhāsa and said to Saṃyāta, his mahout: Lift the cloth off the face of our prize elephant and goad him to fight this wild one. As Your Majesty commands, replied the mahout. By slapping him he first roused the fighting spirit in that elephant, who normally served as a bulwark against enemy troops, then confronted him with his opponent.

At the sight of each other the two elephants grew angry and their flow of must-juice greatly increased: trails of drops sprinkled the dusty ground and made it smell sweet. The clash