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King Śibi in the East and the West: Following the Flight of a Suppliant Dove

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Notes

  1. Apart from a short reference to the story in verse which can be found in all but one recensions, the entire legend is related in the Tantrākhyāyika, the Kashmirian recension.

  2. For a complete list of the representations, together with literary sources from Buddhism, see D. Schlingloff, Erzählende Wandmalereien. Narrative Wall-paintings, I, Wiesbaden, 2000, pp. 222–30; II, pp. 43–5. Cf. also M. Ramarao, Select Andhra Temples, Hyderabad, 1970, pp. 7–9; J. Miksic, Borobudur: Golden Tales of the Buddhas, Jakarta, 1990, p. 78.

  3. For a detailed discussion, see F. Bellino, ‘Mosè, il falco e la colomba: origine, trasformazioni e intrecci di una storia della letteratura islamica’, Quaderni di Studi Arabi, 20–21, 2002–2003, pp. 207–28; ‘Mosè, il falco e la colomba: edizione e traduzione del Ms. Gotha HB Ar. 2212’, Kervan – Rivista Internazionale di studii afroasiatici, 15, 2012, pp. 33–50.

  4. For a good example, see R. Ohnuma, Head, Eyes, Flesh, and Blood: Giving Away the Body in Indian Buddhist Literature, New York, 2007, fig. 6.

  5. See, e.g., the links https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7l0iBENWpY; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prICPBp4_Nk. Both accessed online 15 December 2014.

  6. This short description of the plot cannot, of course, do justice to all the subtle details and divergent orientations of the Hindu, Buddhist and Jain versions. The main lines are, however, the same in all forms of the legend.

  7. T. Benfey, Pantschatantra: Fünf Bücher indischer Fabeln, Märchen und Erzählungen, I, Leipzig, 1859, pp. 386–410 (§ 166). A useful revaluation of Benfey’s hypotheses was made recently by L. Vajda, ‘Vermutungen zu Benfeys Pantschatantra (Paragraph 166)’, in Vividharatnakaraṇḍaka: Festgabe für Adelheid Mette, ed. C. Chojnacki et al., Swisttal-Odendorf, 2000, pp. 503–17.

  8. M. Meisig, König Śibi und die Taube: Wandlung und Wanderung eines Erzählstoffes von Indien nach China, Wiesbaden, 1995. As things are today, no complete Buddhist Sanskrit version has survived. However, at least four Chinese translations are to be distinguished which must go back to separate Sanskrit originals.

  9. D. B. Kapp, ‘Allusions to the Śibi Legend in Classical Tamil Literature’, PILC Journal of Dravidic Studies, 3, 1993, pp. 75–85; ‘A South Indian Tribal Version of the Śibi Legend’, PILC Journal of Dravidic Studies, 7, 1997, pp. 209–13. Cf. also P. Schalk and A. Vēluppiḷḷai, Buddhism among Tamils in Pre-Colonial Tamiḷakam and Īḷam. Part I, Uppsala, 2002, pp. 332–3; S. Raman, ‘The Tale of the Righteous King: King Maṉu in Ramalinga Aṭikaḷ (1823–1874)’, in Passages: Relationships between Tamil and Sanskrit, ed. M. Kannan and J. Clare, Pondicherry, 2009, pp. 237–49 (240–42).

  10. T. Oberlies, ‘ “König Śibi” bei den Jainas: Das Śāntināthacarita’, in Pāsādikadānaṁ: Festschrift für Bhikkhu Pāsādika, ed. M. Straube et al., Marburg, 2009, pp. 303–22. One can add now P. Dundas, ‘A neglected Śvetāmbara Narrative Collection’, International Journal of Jaina Studies, 9, 2013, pp. 1–47 (17, n. 72).

  11. T. Oberlies, ‘König Śibis Selbstopfer: Kontext und Komposition einer Erzählung des Āraṇyakaparvan des Mahābhārata (3,131)’, Bulletin d’Études Indiennes, 19, 2001, pp. 241–50.

  12. E. Parlier, ‘L’histoire du roi des Śibi dans les textes et les images de l’Inde: du sacrifice brahmanique au don du corps bouddhique’, Bulletin d’Études Indiennes, 9, 1991, pp. 133–60.

  13. Diogenes Laertius, Vitae philosophorum, IV.10. Translations of original texts here and in the following are my own.

  14. Aelian, Varia historia, XIII.31.

  15. Reliefs 13–14 (Gandhāra). For the numbering of the representations, see Schlingloff, Erzählende Wandmalereien (n. 2 above), I, pp. 224–5; II, pp. 43–5.

  16. Relief 11 (Mathurā).

  17. Reliefs 4, 5 (with the bird now missing), 6c, 7 (Amarāvatī); 10 (Nāgārjunakoṇḍa); rock-engraving 16 (Shatial); mural cave paintings nos 46–7 (Ajantā); 6–7 (Dunhuang).

  18. Cf. Meisig, König Śibi und die Taube (n. 8 above), pp. 115–16.

  19. For particulars, see F. S. Naiden, Ancient Supplication, Oxford, 2006, pp. 44–62.

  20. Vajda, ‘Vermutungen’ (n. 7 above), pp. 507–9.

  21. Naiden, Ancient Supplication (n. 19 above), pp. 8–25.

  22. Stroking the bird seems to express, in a more concise form, the same as hiding it until the hawk leaves.

  23. For Diogenes Laertius’s possible sources in writing the biography of Xenocrates, see T. Dorandi, ‘Il quarto libro delle “Vite” di Diogene Laerzio: l’Academia da Speusippo a Clitomaco’, Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, II.36.5, 1992, pp. 3761–92 (3766–70, 3789).

  24. Philo of Alexandria, De virtutibus, 125–47; cf. Hypothetica, p. 195 Cohn–Reiter, with a reference to a ban on killing suppliant animals.

  25. Plutarch, De esu carnium, II.3, 997e; De sollertia animalium, 2, 959f; 7, 964e; Quaestiones convivales, VIII.8, 729e; cf. De capienda ex inimicis utilitate, 9, 91c.

  26. For the use of the a minori ad maius argument in Philo for this purpose, see K. Berthelot, ‘Philo and Kindness Towards Animals (De virtutibus 125–47)’, The Studia Philonica Annual, 14, 2002, pp. 48–65; Philanthrôpia judaica: le débat autour de la ‘misanthropie’ des lois juives dans l’Antiquité, Leiden, 2003, pp. 288–300, 311–12.

  27. Plutarch, De esu carnium, I.7, 996a; cf. Cato Maior, 5.5.

  28. Xenocrates’s virtuous character was proverbial, as far as we can see, in his biographies, not like that of his rival, Speusippus, who is said to have thrown his doggy into a well in his rage.

  29. As is also accepted by the editors of Xenocrates’s fragments. See Xenocrates, fr. 99 Heinze = fr. 53 Isnardi Parente.

  30. With the single exception of J. Schamp, ‘Un viatique pour la critique: le cas de l’éthopée’, in ἨΘΟΠΟΙΙΑ: La représentation de caractères entre fiction scolaire et réalité vivante à l’époque impériale et tardive, ed. E. Amato and J. Schamp, Salerno, 2005, pp. 143–55 (144–5).

  31. Photius, Bibliotheca, Cod. 279, 534b–535a Bekker.

  32. See, e.g., Aristoxenus, fr. 29a Wehrli; Theophrastus, De pietate, fr. 18 Pötscher; Aelian, Varia historia, V.14; VIII.3; De natura animalium, XII.34; Dio Chrysostom, Orationes, 64.3; Varro, Res rusticae, II.5.3–4; Columella, De re rustica, 6 Praef. 7; Pliny, Naturalis historia, VIII.70.180.

  33. Quintilian, Institutio oratoria, V.9.13.

  34. Photius, Bibliotheca, Cod. 279, 534a Bekker.

  35. Photius, Bibliotheca, Cod. 279, 534a–b Bekker.

  36. Xenocrates, fr. 252 Isnardi Parente. The fragment was preserved by Hermippus of Smyrna, a famous Hellenistic writer. Cf. J. Bollansée, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker continued. Pt. IV A, Fasc. 3: Hermippos of Smyrna, Leiden, 1999, pp. 18–21, 129–34.

  37. For Theophrastus’s work, see W. W. Fortenbaugh, ‘Theophrastus: Piety, Justice and Animals’, in Theophrastean Studies, Stuttgart, 2003, pp. 173–92.

  38. Cf. Xenocrates, fr. 267 Isnardi Parente.

  39. Xenocrates, fr. 211 Isnardi Parente.

  40. Xenocrates, fr. 220 Isnardi Parente.

  41. See M. Isnardi Parente, ‘Le “tu ne tueras pas” de Xénocrate’, in Histoire et Structure: à la mémoire de Victor Goldschmidt, ed. J. Brunschwig et al., Paris, 1985, pp. 161–72.

  42. Ovid, Epistulae ex Ponto, II.2.31–8.

  43. Cf. Ovid, Tristia, I.1.75–6: ‘At the slightest whirr of wings the dove is frightened, having been wounded, O hawk, by your claws’.

  44. Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica, VIII.32–6.

  45. Homer, Odyssey, XV.526–7; XX.242–3; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica, I.198–200; XII.12–18 (in Calchas’s dream); Nonnus, Dionysiaca, XLII.535–8. Cf. Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica, XVI.27.2. Instead of a dove, we have geese in Homer, Odyssey, XV.161–2; XIX.536–53 (in Penelope’s dream).

  46. Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica, III.541–3.

  47. Suetonius, De vita Caesarum, VII.1.1. For further references, see R. Laurence, Roman Archaeology for Historians, Abingdon, 2012, pp. 52–5.

  48. Martial, Epigrammata, VIII.32.1–4.

  49. Silius Italicus, Punica, IV.105–19.

  50. Vergil, Aeneid, XII.247–56.

  51. Homer, Iliad, VIII.247–50.

  52. Homer, Iliad, XXII.139–40; XVI.582–3 (jackdaws, starlings); XVII.755–7 (starlings, jackdaws); XV.690–92 (geese, cranes, swans); Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica, I.572; III.359–60 (starlings); XI.217–18 (starlings). For other heroes, cf. Homer, Odyssey, XXII.302–3 (vultures against birds); Euripides, Andromacha, 1140–41; Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica, I.1049–50; IV.485–6; Horace, Carmina, I.37.17–18; Vergil, Aeneid, XI.721–2; Ovid, Metamorphoses, XI.300 (cf. 291–2; 344, with metamorphosis into a hawk); Silius Italicus, Punica, V.281–2; Zosimus, Historia nova, I.57.4 (in a Delphic oracle).

  53. Homer, Iliad, XIII.62–4; XV.237–8; XXI.493–5.

  54. Hesiod, Opera et dies, 203–12. Cf. in the same vein, Vergil, Eclogae, IX.13; Pseudo-Philo, Liber antiquitatum Biblicarum, LXII.6 (sparrow). For a recent attempt to establish a connection between the Hesiodic passage and the legend of king Śibi, see A. T. Zanker, ‘A Dove and a Nightingale: Mahābhārata 3.130.18–3.131.32 and Hesiod, Works and Days 202–13’, Philologus, 153, 2009, pp. 10–25. The connection remains, however, quite hypothetical as the motif of supplication is lacking in Hesiod.

  55. Ovid, Metamorphoses, VI.529–30 (cf. 516–17, with hare as a victim); Ars amatoria, I.117. For a series of further examples, cf. Metamorphoses, I.506; V.605–6; XI.773 (duck); Ars amatoria, II.363.

  56. Alcman, fr. 82.

  57. Aeschylus, Supplices, 223–6. For the same comparison, cf. Prometheus vinctus, 857. Recalling the story of Tereus and Procne, a nightingale chased by a hawk is mentioned earlier in Supplices, 62, and a reference to supplication is made later in Supplices, 510.

  58. Herodorus, fr. 22b Jacoby. Cf. Ovid, Ars amatoria, II.147–50, a hawk in contrast with the dove.

  59. Euripides, Hercules, 974.

  60. Cf. Vergil, Aeneid, II.515–17 (with storm in place of the hawk).

  61. Aelian, De natura animalium, IV.2; Varia historia, I.15; Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, IX.51, 394f–395a; Xenophon, Anabasis, I.4.9; Philo of Alexandria, De providentia, II.107; Lucian, De Syria dea, 14, 54; cf. Martial, Epigrammata, XIII.66.

  62. Euripides, Ion, 106–8; 154–83.

  63. Euripides, Ion, 1196–8.

  64. Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica, XVI.27.2.

  65. Herodotus, Historiae, I.159.

  66. Psalms 84:4. In the Aramaic translation of the passage, sparrows and swallows are changed into doves and turtle-doves.

  67. Aelian, Varia historia, V.17.

  68. For a series of occurrences belonging to the former category, see A. Mastrocinque, ‘Sacred Precinct: Cattle, Hunted Animals, Slaves, Women’, in Antike Mythen: Medien, Transformationen und Konstruktionen, ed. U. Dill and C. Walde, Berlin, 2009, pp. 339–55. For the latter use, see Naiden, Ancient Supplication (n. 19 above), pp. 387–8.

  69. Diogenes Laertius, Vitae philosophorum, VIII.34; Iamblichus, De vita Pythagorica, 18.84.

  70. White olive-branch or flag is, at any rate, documented.

  71. Iamblichus, De vita Pythagorica, 18.84; Aristotle, Oeconomica, I.4, 1344a8–12. This would mean that the wife approached the hearth as a place of refuge.

  72. Plutarch, De esu carnium, II.4, 998b; cf. De Stoicorum repugnantiis, 32, 1049a.

  73. Plutarch, De sollertia animalium, 2, 959e; Sophocles, fr. 866 Radt.

  74. The only example ever brought into connection, as far as I know, with the legend of king Śibi. See E. Lévêque, Les mythes et les légendes de l’Inde et la Perse, Paris, 1880, pp. 324–34. Add now, however, Zanker, ‘A Dove and a Nightingale’ (n. 54 above).

  75. Ovid, Metamorphoses, VIII.684–8.

  76. Aelian, De natura animalium, I.52.

  77. Philo of Alexandria, De animalibus, 22; Plutarch, Quaestiones convivales, VIII.7.2, 727c.

  78. Ovid, Ars amatoria, II.147–50.

  79. Cf. Martial, Epigrammata, XII.31.6; III.58.18–19; Ovid, Epistulae ex Ponto, I.6.51.

  80. For the most characteristic piece, now in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (27.45), see the link http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/27.45. Accessed online 15 December 2014.

  81. Catullus, Carmina, 2–3; Martial, Epigrammata, I.7; VII.14.

  82. Naiden, Ancient Supplication (n. 19 above), pp. 18–19, and see the Appendices in the same book for lists with specific details.

  83. For a positive example when a king refrains from killing a deer that has sought refuge in a sage’s hermitage, see Kālidāsa, Abhijñānaśākuntala, I.25–44; for an opposite case when a king incurs the sage’s curse upon himself after killing the deer, see Mūlasarvāstivādavinayavastu, Cīvaravastu, pp. 13–14 Dutt.

  84. Kauṭilya, Arthaśāstra, VII.1.2.

  85. Kauṭilya, Arthaśāstra, VII.1.10, 17; cf. VII.2.6–25; VII.15.21–30.

  86. Pañcatantra, III, vv. 62–3; Tantrākhyāyika, III, vv. 76–7; Pañcākhyānaka (textus simplicior), III, vv. 155–6.

  87. Pañcatantra, III, v. 68; Tantrākhyāyika, III, v. 80; Pañcākhyānaka (textus ornatior), III, v. 171; Southern Pañcatantra, III.1384–5.

  88. Tantrākhyāyika, III.7. The story must once also have been included in the Telugu-Kannada Pañcatantra, cf. J.-A. Dubois, Le Pantcha-tantra ou les cinq ruses, Paris, 1826, pp. 173–7.

  89. For ingenious remarks on how the legend of king Śibi was narrated in the Pañcatantra in such a way as to make it suited to the purposes of state policy through a series of covert allusions intended for the owl king that he had better be wary of the alleged suppliant, see Meisig, König Śibi und die Taube (n. 8 above), pp. 34–40.

  90. Pañcatantra, III.7; Tantrākhyāyika, III.9; Pañcākhyānaka (textus ornatior), III.13; Southern Pañcatantra, III.9; cf. Pañcākhyānaka (textus simplicior), IV.8.

  91. Hitopadeśa, IV.5.

  92. Naiden, Ancient Supplication (n. 19 above), pp. 6, 18–25.

  93. Or, in Hinduism, to be born in heaven as a reward for his deed.

  94. That is a future Buddha, in possession of the perfect virtues (pāramitās). The Buddhist versions of the legend are to illustrate one or the other of these virtues.

  95. In Jain tradition, it is the Tīrthaṃkara Śāntinātha who was thought to have accomplished in one of his previous births as the king Vajrāyudha or Megharatha the same deed as was ascribed to king Śibi.

  96. For an expression of the idea, see Dhammapada, 188–92.

  97. Calcutta-Bairāṭ Rock Edict, B.

  98. For a discussion of the epic versions, see Meisig, König Śibi und die Taube (n. 8 above), pp. 3–46.

  99. Mahābhārata, III.197.6–8 (critical edition, Appendix I, no. 21.5, 71–2).

  100. For a similar overtone in another version, see Mahābhārata, XIII.32.19 (critical edition, Appendix I, no. 8, 37–8).

  101. The story is told by Bhīṣma, lying on his bed of arrows, in the Anuśāsanaparvan of very mixed contents.

  102. Mahābhārata, III.130.1–2, 4, 10–13, 28. Cf. the only other occurrence of dharma in this sense, Mahābhārata, XIII.32.16 (critical edition, Appendix I, no. 8, 31–2).

  103. Mahābhārata, III.130.1, 9, 25, 28.

  104. On this type of self-sacrifice, see the recent monograph by Ohnuma, Head, Eyes, Flesh, and Blood (n. 4 above); cf. also A. Sheravanichkul, ‘Self-Sacrifice of the Bodhisatta in the Paññāsa Jātaka’, Religion Compass, 2, 2008, pp. 769–87. On religious self-sacrifice in India, see D. D. Hudson, ‘Self-Sacrifice as Truth in India’, in Sacrificing the Self: Perspectives on Martyrdom and Religion, ed. M. Cormack, Oxford, 2001, pp. 132–52; D. M. Knipe, ‘Self-Sacrifice’, in South Asian Folklore: An Encyclopedia, ed. M. A. Mills et al., London, 2003, pp. 540–42.

  105. Mahābhārata, III.199.6; XII.141.3 (with varia lectio).

  106. Mahābhārata, XII.226.19; XIII.137.4 (critical edition, Appendix I, no. 14B, 8–9). The king’s own limbs and own son amount almost to the same, the son being born from one’s body.

  107. Other kings fell down from heaven before long by reason of insults committed against brahmins either wittingly or unwittingly. For a distinction of Śibi’s virtues over those of other kings, see Mahābhārata, III.194.1–8 (critical edition, Appendix I, no. 21.2, 37–49).

  108. Mahābhārata, III.198.16–25 (critical edition, Appendix I, no. 21.6, 136–55). A similar story is related about king Śibi’s son willing to offer his own son in turn as food for brahmins, cf. Mahābhārata, XIII.94.8–11.

  109. See L. Alsdorf, ‘Das Sivijātaka (499): Ein Beitrag zu seiner Textgeschichte’, in Pratidānam: Indian, Iranian and Indo-European Studies presented to Franciscus Bernardus Jacobus Kuiper on his Sixtieth Birthday, ed. J. C. Heesterman et al., The Hague, 1968, pp. 478–83.

  110. Jātaka, 499.14.66; Mahābhārata, III.198.26–7 (critical edition, Appendix I, no. 21.6, 157–8).

  111. The vow is formulated in the text in a very pictorial way. The king tells he is ready to open his bosom with a spear to pull out his heart, dripping with blood, just as one pulls out a lotus by the stalk from a pond; or to carve his flesh off his limbs as if with a chisel; or to draw his blood into a vessel to give it to drink; or to tear out his eyes like the pith of a palm.

  112. Jātaka, 499; Cariyāpiṭaka, I.8; cf. Āryaśūra, Jātakamālā, 2; Mahajjātakamālā, 44.

  113. Mūlasarvāstivādavinayavastu, Cīvaravastu, pp. 132–3 Dutt; cf. J. L. Panglung, Die Erzählstoffe des Mūlasarvāstivāda-Vinaya, analysiert auf Grund der tibetischen Übersetzung, Tokyo, 1981, p. 108. It may be worth mentioning that in the next chapter it is king Śibi’s son, again, who performs a selfless act in order to heal one of leprosy.

  114. Karmaśataka, X.11 (in Tibetan translation); Kṣemendra, Avadānakalpalatā, 91. Cf. M. Straube, Studien zur Bodhisattvāvadānakalpalatā: Texte und Quellen der Parallelen zu Haribhaṭṭas Jātakamālā, Wiesbaden, 2009, pp. 324–31.

  115. Avadānaśataka, IV.4; Dvāviṃśatyavadānakathā, pp. 229–31 Okada.

  116. The Avadānaśataka, together with the Karmaśataka, can be dated roughly to the 1st-century AD.

  117. Benfey, Pantschatantra (n. 7 above), I, pp. 386–410 (§ 166).

  118. See Vajda, ‘Vermutungen’ (n. 7 above), pp. 503–7, 513–15.

  119. Cf. Vajda, ‘Vermutungen’ (n. 7 above), pp. 509–15. For a classical echo of the motif, see W. Hansen, Ariadne’s Thread: A Guide to International Tales found in Classical Literature, Ithaca, 2002, pp. 352–7.

  120. Divyāvadāna, 32 (A.168a); Kṣemendra, Avadānakalpalatā, 51.20–27. Cf. Straube, Studien (n. 114 above), pp. 322–4.

  121. Mārkaṇḍeyapurāṇa, III.15–81.

  122. For all versions of the tale in Indian literature, see F. D. K. Bosch, De legende van Jīmūtavāhana in de Sanskrit-litteratuur, Leiden, 1914, pp. 1–2.

  123. Abhiniṣkramaṇasūtra, XII.1 (in Chinese translation). For the same story in the Vinaya of the Mūlasarvāstivādins, see B. Mukherjee, Die Überlieferung von Devadatta: dem Widersacher des Buddha, in den kanonischen Schriften, Munich, 1966, p. 119.

  124. Kṣemendra, Avadānakalpalatā, 55; Dvāviṃśatyavadānakathā, pp. 164–7 Okada; cf. Meisig, König Śibi und die Taube (n. 8 above), pp. 54–70. Some of the visual representations of the legend seem to depict this slightly modified version, cf. Schlingloff, Erzählende Wandmalereien (n. 2 above), I, pp. 231–2.

  125. For references to original sources omitted here for brevity’s sake, see the entries in L. Grey, A Concordance of Buddhist Birth Stories, 3rd edn, Oxford, 2000. For a useful list of the so-called gift-of-the-body Jātakas, see Ohnuma, Head, Eyes, Flesh, and Blood (n. 4 above), pp. 273–83.

  126. Or, in other versions, he opened the veins himself, the doctors being reluctant.

  127. Āryaśūra, Jātakamālā, 8; Mūlasarvāstivādavinayavastu, Saṃghabhedavastu, pp. 20–21 Gnoli; Karmaśataka, IV.1 (in Tibetan translation); Mahajjātakamālā, 46; cf. Panglung, Erzählstoffe (n. 113 above), pp. 95–6.

  128. For a stemma of the sources, see M. Hahn, Candragomins Lokānandanāṭaka: nach dem tibetischen Tanjur herausgegeben und übersetzt, Wiesbaden, 1974, p. 23; ‘The Play Lokānandanāṭaka by Candragomin’, Kailash, 7, 1979, pp. 51–67 (54); cf. also R. Handurukande, Maṇicūḍāvadāna, being a Translation and Edition, and Lokānanda, a Transliteration and Synopsis, London, 1967; Y. Ren, ‘Maṇicūḍāvadāna: The Annotated Translation and A Study of the Religious Significance of Two Versions of the Sanskrit Buddhist Story’, PhD diss., McMaster University, Hamilton, 1998, pp. 1–48; and most recently A. Hanisch, ‘Sarvarakṣita’s Maṇicūḍajātaka: Reproduction of the Codex Unicus with Diplomatic Transcript and Palaeographic Introduction to the Bhaikṣukī Script’, in Sanskrit Texts from Giuseppe Tucci’s Collection, I, ed. F. Sferra, Rome, 2008, pp. 195–342.

  129. Maṇicūḍāvadāna, 21–33; Svayaṃbhūpurāṇa, IV.165–290 (98–110); Kṣemendra, Avadānakalpalatā, 3.58–78; Mahajjātakamālā, 49 (the episode presumably lost with the missing leaves). For variants with the king offering his half body to ogres and brahmins, see Kṣemendra, Avadānakalpalatā, 2; Paññāsa Jātaka, 7.

  130. For a parallel to the latter deed, see the story of king Candraprabha giving his own head to an evil brahmin, no other than an ogre (brahmarākṣasa). Both this type of bodily sacrifice and that of giving one’s own body to an ogre recur later in the popular tales of king Vikramāditya.

  131. Mahāvastu, I.92–3; Avadānaśataka, IV.5; Paññāsa Jātaka, 26.

  132. Beside patience (kṣānti), generosity (dāna) and exertion (vīrya).

  133. A telling name most frequently mentioned in this context is Subhāṣitagaveṣin (‘seeker of a wise saying’). Cf. Straube, Studien (n. 114 above), pp. 324–31.

  134. Nāgārjuna, Mahāprajñāpāramitāśāstra, 12.146b (in Chinese translation). For further variants, see É. Lamotte, Le traité de la grande vertu de sagesse: Mahāprajñāpāramitāśāstra, III, Louvain, 1966, p. 715, n. 1.

  135. Mahāvagga, VI.23.1–9. For the same story in the Vinaya of the Mūlasarvāstivādins, see Panglung, Erzählstoffe (n. 113 above), p. 17.

  136. For details, see F. Weller, ‘Der Arme Heinrich in Indien’, Orientalische Literaturzeitung, 68, 1973, pp. 437–48; H. Durt, ‘Two Interpretations of Human-Flesh Offering: Misdeed or Supreme Sacrifice’, Kokusai Bukkyōgaku Daigakuin Daigaku Kenkyū Kiyō [Journal of the International College for Advanced Buddhist Studies], 1, 1998, pp. 236–210 (57–83); M. Meisig and K. Meisig, ‘Der Arme Heinrich: eine indische Legende oder: Śakra in Schwaben’, in Indische Kultur im Kontext: Rituale, Texte und Ideen aus Indien und der Welt. Festschrift für Klaus Mylius, ed. L. Göhler, Wiesbaden, 2005, pp. 313–26.

  137. For some examples, see Mūlasarvāstivādavinayavastu, Cīvaravastu, pp. 14–15 Dutt; Kṣemendra, Avadānakalpalatā, 32.10–12. Cf. M. Bloomfield, ‘The Dohada or Craving of Pregnant Women: A Motif of Hindu Fiction’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 40, 1920, pp. 1–24 (6–8).

  138. Avadānaśataka, IV.1; Haribhaṭṭa, Jātakamālā, 8; Kṣemendra, Avadānakalpalatā, 99. Cf. Straube, Studien (n. 114 above), pp. 331–2.

  139. Jātaka, 316; Cariyāpiṭaka, I.10; Āryaśūra, Jātakamālā, 6; Haribhaṭṭa, Jātakamālā, 4; Avadānaśataka, IV.7; Kṣemendra, Avadānakalpalatā, 104. Cf. Panglung, Erzählstoffe (n. 113 above), p. 45; Straube, Studien (n. 114 above), pp. 335–7.

  140. Paññāsa Jātaka, 30.

  141. Mahābhārata, XII.141–5; Pañcākhyānaka (textus ornatior), III.8; cf. Nāgārjuna, Mahāprajñāpāramitāśāstra, 11.143c.

  142. Āryaśūra, Jātakamālā, 30; Kṣemendra, Avadānakalpalatā, 96. Cf. Panglung, Erzählstoffe (n. 113 above), p. 47.

  143. Kṣemendra, Avadānakalpalatā, 97; Paññāsa Jātaka, 43. Cf. Panglung, Erzählstoffe (n. 113 above), pp. 43–4, 94.

  144. Āryaśūra, Jātakamālā, 1; Suvarṇabhāsottamasūtra, 18.201–40; Kṣemendra, Avadānakalpalatā, 95.

  145. Divyāvadāna, 32; Haribhaṭṭa, Jātakamālā, 6 (with only the first part related); Kṣemendra, Avadānakalpalatā, 51. Cf. Straube, Studien (n. 114 above), pp. 322–4.

  146. Karuṇāpuṇḍarīkasūtra, 376.7–384.5; Mahajjātakamālā, 40. For a similar story, see Karuṇāpuṇḍarīkasūtra, 360.10–368.5.

  147. Cf. Vajda, ‘Vermutungen’ (n. 7 above), pp. 511–12.

  148. Reference is often made in this respect to the dismemberment of Puruṣa, the primordial man, as it is told in one hymn of the Ṛgveda. Prajāpati was to represent the same role in later times as the primordial man who had been sacrificed in order to become the universe.

  149. For a detailed analysis, see H. Durt, ‘Du lambeau de chair au démembrement: le renoncement au corps dans le bouddhisme ancien’, Bulletin de l’École Française d’Extrême-Orient, 87, 2000, pp. 7–22 (12–17); W. Kyan, ‘Representing Childhood in Chinese Buddhism: The Sujati Jataka in Text and Image’, in Little Buddhas: Children and Childhoods in Buddhist Texts and Traditions, ed. V. R. Sasson, Oxford, 2013, pp. 157–82.

  150. For this custom called gegu, see J. Yu, ‘Self-Inflicted Violence’, in The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Chinese Religions, ed. R. L. Nadeau, Oxford, 2012, pp. 467–72.

  151. For the representations, see A. P. Bell, Didactic Narration: Jataka Iconography in Dunhuang with a Catalogue of Jataka Representations in China, Münster, 2000.

  152. Kathāsaritsāgara, V.26.238–43; XII.73.300–302; XII.99.48–55. These episodes remind one of the giant bird (griffin, rukh, etc.) of the folktales, carrying the hero through different regions of the universe.

  153. See G. Macalister, Specimens with a Dictionary & a Grammar of the Dialects spoken in the State of Jeypore, Allahabad, 1898, pp. 105–7; cf. S. Thompson and J. Balys, The Oral Tales of India, Bloomington, 1958, p. 69 (motif B 322.1).

  154. For the tale, see M. Hatami, Untersuchungen zum persischen Papageienbuch des Naḫšabī, Freiburg, 1977, pp. 75–7.

  155. Hatami, Untersuchungen (n. 154 above), pp. 77–8; cf. Bellino, ‘Mosè, il falco e la colomba’ (n. 3 above), pp. 222–3.

  156. Cf. D. Forbes, The Adventures of Hatim Taï, a Romance, translated from the Persian, London, 1830, p. 22.

  157. For the Chinese sources, see M. Deeg, Das Gaoseng-Faxian-Zhuan als religionsgeschichtliche Quelle: Der älteste Bericht eines chinesischen buddhistischen Pilgermönchs über seine Reise nach Indien mit Übersetzung des Textes, Wiesbaden, 2005, pp. 226–8.

  158. Cf. Deeg, Gaoseng-Faxian-Zhuan (n. 157 above), pp. 120–22. The main territory of the land of the Śibis is likely to be sought in this place, as suggested by P. H. L. Eggermont, Alexander’s Campaigns in Sind and Baluchistan and the Siege of the Brahmin Town of Harmatelia, Leuven, 1975, pp. 138–44.

  159. For the relief, now in the British Museum, see Bell, Didactic Narration (n. 151 above), pp. 40–41; Schlingloff, Erzählende Wandmalereien (n. 2 above), I, p. 225; II, p. 44.

  160. See Meisig, König Śibi und die Taube (n. 8 above), pp. 71–134.

  161. Dio Chrysostom, Orationes, 53.6–7; Aelian, Varia historia, XII.48.

  162. Plutarch, De Alexandri magni fortuna aut virtute, I.5, 328d.

  163. As is attested, among others, by the so-called Tabulae Iliacae.

  164. Cf. the famous vase, now in the Mykonos Museum.

  165. For a recent discussion of the question with scholarly literature, see G. Ducœur, ‘Quelques enjeux scientifiques d’un bas-relief gandhārien: le cas du cheval de Troie’, in Autour de Bāmiyān: de la Bactriane hellénisée à l’Inde bouddhique, ed. G. Ducœur, Paris, 2012, pp. 363–73.

  166. Cf. K. Karttunen, India and the Hellenistic World, Helsinki, 1997, p. 285.

  167. Cf. W. Ball, Rome in the East: The Transformation of an Empire, London, 2000, p. 145.

  168. Y. Krishan, The Buddha Image: Its Origin and Development, New Delhi, 1996, pp. 29–31.

  169. M. Zin, ‘Vajrapāṇi in the Narrative Reliefs’, in Migration, Trade and Peoples. II: Gandharan Art, ed. C. Fröhlich, London, 2009, pp. 73–88 (82).

  170. The kings are by name Zoilus I (130–120 BC), Strato I (125–110 BC), Heliocles II (110–100 BC) and Theophilus (90 BC). The famous king Menander (155–130 BC) has only the epithet in Prakrit in the dubious Reh inscription. For details, see A. Christol, ‘Le grec au contact des Iraniens et des Indiens’, in Langues en contact dans l’Antiquité: aspects lexicaux, ed. A. Blanc and A. Christol, Paris, 1999, pp. 107–23 (117); F. de Callataÿ and C. C. Lorber, ‘The Pattern of Royal Epithets on Hellenistic Coinages’, in More Than Men, Less Than Gods: Studies on Royal Cult and Imperial Worship, ed. P. P. Iossif et al., Leuven, 2011, pp. 417–55.

  171. Not to mention his contemporary, the elusive Pantaleon.

  172. R. Salomon, ‘The Indo-Greek Era of 186/5 BC in a Buddhist Reliquary Inscription’, in Afghanistan, ancien carrefour entre l’Est et l’Ouest, ed. O. Bopearachchi and M.-F. Boussac, Turnhout, 2005, pp. 359–401; J. Jakobsson, ‘Who Founded the Indo-Greek Era of 186/5 BCE?’, Classical Quarterly, 59, 2009, pp. 505–10.

  173. Later, the epithet was also used, presumably in imitation of the Indo-Greek rulers, by the Parthian kings.

  174. The term recurs in the edicts some twelve dozen times, all in all.

  175. Rock Edict, III(D); IV(C); IX(G); XI(C); XIII(G); Minor Rock Edict, II(N); Pillar Edict, 7(HH).

  176. Rock Edict, IX(G); Minor Rock Edict, II(N); Pillar Edict, 2(C); 3(F); 5; 7(EE); cf. Rock Edict, IV(C); VII(B–D); XIII(O); Pillar Edict, 4(O).

  177. For references, see R. Bodéüs, Aristotle and the Theology of the Living Immortals, Albany, 2000, pp. 135–48.

  178. Cf. Fortenbaugh, ‘Piety, Justice and Animals’ (n. 37 above), pp. 183–6, 189–91.

  179. Rock Edict, I(B, F–H).

  180. Xenocrates, fr. 252 Isnardi Parente.

  181. Rock Edict, XIII(Q); II(A). For the identity of these rulers, see Karttunen, India and the Hellenistic World (n. 166 above), p. 266; ‘Aśoka and Mauryas: A Graeco-Roman Perspective’, in Aśoka: In History and Historical Memory, ed. P. Olivelle, Delhi, 2009, pp. 103–8 (106, n. 12).

  182. Rock Edict, XIII(P–T).

  183. Kandahar Edict, I.5–6; II.15.

  184. Rock Edict, I(F–H). The king is letting his subjects know that instead of the several hundred thousands of animals killed in order to make sauce of their meat in the royal kitchen from day to day, at the time of inscribing the edict only three animals are killed per day, two peacocks and one deer, and even the numbers of these animals are to be reduced to null in the future.

  185. Onesicritus, fr. 17a Whitby. In order for this discussion to take place between the two parties, no less than three interpreters were needed. The first may have translated from Prakrit to Bactrian, the second from Bactrian to Persian and the third from Persian to Greek.

  186. Megasthenes, fr. 33 Roller.

Acknowledgements

In preparing this study, I was supported by the OTKA Project No. K 112283 of the National Research Fund of Hungary. Thanks are due to Professor Reiko Ohnuma (Dartmouth College) for reading through my work and correcting my English where needed.

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Gaál, B. King Śibi in the East and the West: Following the Flight of a Suppliant Dove. Int class trad 24, 1–34 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12138-016-0429-z

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