ELEPHANTS, HISTORICAL 139 



Asoka.* On a fragment of the Buddhist Rail we have a 

 decidedly humorous treatment, an elephant being utilized 

 by a troupe of monkey dentists to extract a particularly 

 obstinate tooth by means of a long rope or cord attached to 

 this.f 



Another Buddhist legend relates that in one of the trans- 

 formations of Gautama Buddha he assumed the form of an 

 elephant known by the name of Sattan Sin Min. His sudden 

 disappearance was regarded as desertion by his consort, 

 who prayed that in the next transmigration of her soul a 

 signal vengeance might be granted to her. She was born 

 again as queen of the king of Benares, and one day, pretend- 

 ing to be severely ill, she declared that nothing could cure 

 her of her malady except an ivory earring. A hunter was 

 immediately sent out to secure tusks and got those of the 

 transformed Buddha. The coveted earring was duly made 

 and the queen's thirst for revenge and her vanity were grati- 

 fied at the same time. This was the origin of ivory carving 

 in Burma. J 



Indeed, the elephant appears quite often in Buddhist 

 legend. For instance, we read in the "Kullavagga" that 

 there was at Rajagaha an elephant named Nalagira, very 

 fierce and a manslayer. To compass the destruction of the 

 Buddha, Devadatta went to the elephant stables in Raja- 

 gaha and said to the elephant keepers: "I, my friends, am a 

 relative of the Rajah and able to advance a man occupying 

 a low position to a high position, and to order an increase of 

 rations or of pay; therefore, my friends, when Gautama 

 Buddha shall have arrived at this carriage-road, then loose 

 the elephant Nalagira and let him go down the road." The 



*Andrews, op. cit., p. 63. 

 fAndrews. op. cit., PI. XCIII. 



JH. S. Pratt, "Ivory Carving in Bur^a," the Journal of Indian Art and Industry, Vol. 

 IX, No. 75, p. 59; July, 1901. 



