THE ANCIENT ABBEY OF AJANTA 131
is for the most part dim, and the colours have largely to be guessed at. What are the subjects ? Ah, that is the question ! Here at any rate is one rendered specially famous, for the moment, by the recent labours upon it of an English artist, ^ which evidently portrays the Maha Hansa Jatak from the Jatakas or Birth-Tales.^ These were the Puranas of Buddhism. That is to say, they were its popular literature. History is to a great extent merely the story of organisation, the gradual selecting and ordering of elements already present. And in that sense the Puranas form a reflection and imitation of the Jatakas. The elements of both were present before. Buddhism organised the one in Pali, and Hinduism, later, the other in Sanskrit. But in some cases it would appear as if the Mahavamsa, with its history of the evangelising of Ceylon, had been the treasure-house of Ajanta artists. There are in some of the caves, notably One, pictures of ships and elephant-hunts which seem to corre-
- See the reproduction in the Burlingtoti Magazine for June 1910,
together with Mrs. Herringham's valuable notes.
^ Queen Khema has a dream about golden geese, and entreats Samyama the king to find one for her. The king has a decoy lake constructed and his fowler captures the king of the geese. The monarch is deserted by all his subjects save one, Sumukha, his chief captain. Then the two are brought before the king, who treats them with great honour, and when the goose-king has preached the law to him, they both return, with his permission, to their own kith and kin on the slopts of Chittrakuta.
"The Master here ended his story, and identified the Birth : at that time the fowler was Channa, Queen Khema was the nun Khema, the king was Sariputta, the king's retinue the followers of Buddha, Samukha was Ananda, and the Goose-king was myself. Maha Hamsa Jataka, p. 534. Vol. v. Cowell's Jalaka.
