The Story of Aṅgulimāla

[Full title: Depiction of scenes from the life of Buddha: The Story of Aṅgulimāla]

Story:-

A son was born to the Brāhmaṇ Bhaggava, the priest to the king of Kośala. On the day of his birth all the armour in the city shimmered causing discomfort to the king. The priest explained this strange phenomenon to the king as an indication of the future propensities of his new born child who would become a great bandit.

The child known as Ahimsaka grew up and studied in Taxila. But his friends disliked him and poisoned the teacher’s mind against him. The teacher, however, was afraid of the superior strength of the youth and devised a trick to ruin him. After the completion of his study the teacher asked him to pay an honorarium of thousand human right hand fingers hoping that he would get punished for the first human finger that he cut. But the youth was determined for accomplishing his task. He was known as Aṅgulimāla from the garland of human fingers that he wore on his neck. Finally the king sent an army to capture him. The mother tried to turn him from his wicked ways. Buddha knowing that Aṅgulimāla would not spare even his mother in his thirst for human fingers appeared between them. Buddha dissuaded him from his evil ways and Aṅgulimāla entered the Buddhist order.^[1] The story is found in the Mahāvagga of Vīṇāya Piṭaka.^[2]

Depiction:-

A fragment of a coping housed in the Madras Government Museum bears the narration of this episode. Here on the right towards the top is seen flaming pillar symbolically representing Buddha. It is attacked by Aṅgulimāla with a sword in his hand. The mother to the extreme right approaches the flaming pillar, that is, the Master with a vessel in her hand. The man on the elephant belongs to the royal force sent to capture Aṅgulimāla.^[3] (Pl 25d)

Another depiction of the story is found on the lower fragment of a rail pillar. Towards the right is an empty throne with feet on a footstool flanked by two adorers with chowries. The side has three panels. The first panel shows a heavily built man, a woman with her right hand over her head and a youth kneeling before her. The man may be identified as Ahimsaka waiting respectfully for his teacher. The central one shows the man, that is, the teacher teaching a number of students. In the third panel the youth kneels before the teacher surrounded by his pupils^[4]. This is kept in the Madras Government Museum.

This event is also illustrated in a relief from Nāgārjunakoṇḍa.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Ibid, pp 191-192.

[2]:

Davids T.W Rhys and Oldbenberg Hermann, 1974, Op.cit, p 196.

[3]:

Sivaramamurti C, Op.cit, pp 191-192, pl XL, fig 2.

[4]:

Ibid, p 192-193, pl XXXI, fig 2.