Dr. R.  Banerjee (Chinese and Central Asian Scholar) Dr. R.  Banerjee

 

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SOME ASPECTS OF JATAKA PAINTINGS IN INDIAN AND CHINESE (CENTRAL ASIAN) ART

M. C. Joshi & R. Banerjee

 

Syama or Samaka Jataka
Visvantara Jataka
Ruru (Deer) Jataka
Sibi Jataka
References

Ruru (Deer) Jataka
 

The Ruru Jataka narrates the story of the Bothisattva's birth as a deer, often regarded as sacred and innocent in India, particularly in the Buddhist tradition. There are other Jatakas mentioning the Bo0dhisattva's birth as deer or stag two of which are also illustrated at Ajanta (Cave No. 17) - the Nyagrodha-Mriga and Sarabha-Mriga Jataka. In the Ruru Jataka Story which has been portrayed in various sites in India and outside we see a deer being betrayed by an ungrateful man who should feel indebted to the deer for saving his life from drowning. Instead, the man reveals the deer's secret hideout to the king, which leads to the deer's being captured. The turning point comes when the deer appeals to the conscience of the king by exposing the treachery of the man. The king finally corrects the wrong doing and gets the deer freed. It is a very interesting and moving story. the artists have depicted the various consecutive events of the story with great feeling.

Incidentally, in China we have the very popular story of the nine-coloured deer. The Mogao Grottoes in its Cave No. 257, have preserved a wall painting of the vintage of Northern Wei (439-534 AD) which is 60 x 595 cm. in size. The reproduction of the painting was also exhibited in New Delhi at the IGNCA ground in 1991 along with other reproductions. The painting gives a detailed account of how the nine-coloured deer first saves a man from drowning. Then, the man discovers this marvellous animal and reports it to the queen who is a greedy person eager to capture the wonderful deer. The sequence of the painting goes on to show the capture of the deer because of the man's leading the queen's hunters to his secret hideout. In the centre of the painting is the conversation of the deer with the king revealing the treacherous deed of the man, as well as the sequential end of the deer's being freed, and the man's being punished.

Thus, we see this story about the nine-coloured deer is a slight variation of the Ruru Jataka. In its Indian version, the deer (actually the deer-king) is a golden deer - while its Chinese counterpart is a deer of nine-colours. We know that the Chinese use numbers to describe things often in a figurative manner. They generally use the word "five-colours" to mean multicolour, and there is no "six-colour" in Chinese vocabulary. Here, the usage of "nine-colour" is purported to indicate rarity. In this Chinese story, the deer is just such a rare treasure that one hardly comes acorss in daily life. This conforms to the theme of the Ruru Jataka. Why has the Chinese version preferred to depict it as the "nine-coloured" rather than the "golden" deer is not clear to us. But, we know that to the Indians gold is the highest value of treasure. In real life also there is greater treasuring of gold in India than in China which is country that does not produce much gold. Another departure of the Chinese version is that instead of the king's desiring to possess the deer (as is in the Indian version), it is the queen who is greedy (in the Chinese version). But, both the versions end with the king's listening to the appeal of the victimized deer and performing justice. We know that according to the Chinese political tradition the king cannot be devious and is always the arbitor of justice. If the Chinese had to adopt the Ruru Jataka in its totality it would have compromised the image of such an arbitor. So, the changed detail (putting the blame on the queen, but never the king) is out of political considerations. There is another deviation in the Chinese story's ending with the treacherous man's being punished which is not mentioned in the Indian Ruru Jataka. We must add that the reproduction we saw in the IGNCA exhibition in1991 was executed by no other poerson than Prof. Chang Shuhong, the legendary Founder-Director of the Dunhuang Research Institute (now the Dunhuang Academy) who had passed away about five years ago. It was a marvellous painting which cannot be surpassed in skill, colour scheme and characterization. This painting joins its original inside the Dunhuang cave to rank as real masterpieces that human efforts  can create. They are not only the finest depictions of th Jataka one has ever seen, but can be considered as among the greatest paintings of China - even of the world.

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