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.