138 



JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). 



[Vol. VIII. 



is the story of the first mortal whose hair turned grey, who, 

 when he saw the first grey hair, was so convinced of the 

 instability of human existence, that he resigned his king- 

 dom to his son and became an ascetic ; and this became 

 the rule of his race. In the sculpture the king is seated 

 between two attendants : in his right-hand he holds before 

 his face something small between his fore-finger and thumb ; 

 the attendant on the right holds up something in the same 

 way between his fore-finger and thumb, and is drawing the 

 king's attention to it. 



With the key given by the label, the story is seen to be 

 well told ; without the label it would have been difficult to 

 identify the Jataka. 



Before passing from the most ancient sculptures, it may 

 be well to call attention to the simplicity of the sculpture s, 

 and to the striking way in which the story is told with only 

 a few figures : the salient points are seized, and the main 

 points of a long story are put before the eye in a small space; 

 for example, how can the story of the purchase and dedica- 

 tion of the Jetavana monastery be better told than in the 

 small medallion before you ; also compare the Ohadantiya 

 Jatakam of the third century B.C., as shown in plate XXVI., 

 fig. 6, with the elaborate and beautiful drawing in the Ajanta 

 caves of the same Jataka in the sixth century A.D. (Bur- 

 gess, Buddhist Cave Temples, 1883, plate XVI., and text pp. 

 45 and 46.) In the one, the story is told by a kneeling 

 elephant and a hunter with a saw, a tree, and two elephants 

 in the background ; in the drawing there is a large herd of 

 elephants, the huntsmen returning over the rocks with the 

 tusks, the presentation of the tusks to the Queen, and the 

 remorse of the Queen. That gradually these Jatakas were 

 more and more elaborately depicted, we have already learnt 

 from Fa-hian's account of them in the beginning of the fifth 

 century ; and at this day, in spite of great decline in artistic 

 power, there is great elaboration of all the details of the 

 stories. To show this to the Members of this Society, I have 

 had drawn by native artists, in their own way, two of the first 

 fifty Jatakas— the Devadhamma Jataka (6) and the Khadi- 

 rangara Jataka (40) or 'fiery furnace.' Any one who wishes can 

 compare this picture-story of the Devadhamma Jataka with 

 the same story on the walls of the Kelani temple, which is 



