140 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT 



elephant keepers agreed to do so, and when the Buddha, 

 surrounded by his disciples, reached the spot, the elephant 

 was loosed and charged toward him "with uplifted trunk, 

 and with its tail and ears erect." The disciples were panic- 

 stricken, but the Buddha reassured them, and "he caused 

 the sun of his love to pervade the elephant Nalagira," so 

 that the animal, lowering its trunk, went quietly up to the 

 Buddha, who stroked its forehead with his right hand. 

 Completely tamed, the once ferocious beast returned to its 

 quarters, and the people, filled with admiration, cried out: 

 "They can be tamed by sticks and goads and whips, but the 

 great Sage has tamed an elephant without weapon or stick."* 



The elephant is vividly figured in an elaborately carved 

 bas-relief frieze, illustrating a hunting scene, which adorns 

 the great temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, the most re- 

 cent and also the most ornate of the great Buddhist temples 

 in this region. The entire frieze measures 324 ft. in length, 

 and shows about one thousand figures. On the elephant's 

 neck is seated a mahout, while a warrier armed with bow 

 and arrows is standing, one foot on the animal's back and 

 the other on a seat it bears, in the art of drawing his bow. 

 This war elephant has its trunk curled back, and head erect, 

 the rather short tusks projectingbut little beyond the trunk.f 



An elephant stylobate, unearthed in 1894 by the Archaeo- 

 logical Commissioner, on private land a mile from Anura- 

 dhapura, Ceylon, has just been set up on a lawn before the 

 library building in Colombo. Beneath a broad platform 

 are sculptured as supports thirty-six elephant heads, nine 

 on each of the four sides. The whole work is exceedingly 

 artistic and belongs to the time of the Cinghalese monarchy. 



*"Kullavagga," VII, 3, 11, 12; Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XX, Vinaya Texts, Pt. Ill, 

 trans, by T. W. Rhys Davids and Hermann Oldenberg, Oxford, 1885, pp. 247-250. 



tJacob E. Conner, "The Forgotten Ruins of Indo-China," in the National Geographic 

 Magazine. Vol. XXIII, No. 3, pp. 209-272; illustration of elephant on p. 266 (Four- 

 nereau Collection). 



