INDIAN SHIPPING
the steersman being accommodated on a sort of ladder which remotely suggests the steersman's chair in the modern Burmese row-boats; while a rower is in the bows."[1] The vessel is of the Madhyamandirā type, and corresponds exactly to the form of those vessels which, according to the Yuktikalpataru, are to be used in pleasure trips by kings.
The third representation from the Ajantā paintings reproduced here is that of the scene of the landing of Vijaya in Ceylon, with his army and fleet, and his installation. The circumstances of Vijaya's banishment from Bengal with all his followers and their families are fully set forth in the Pali works, Mahāwańso, Rājāvalliya, and the like. The fleet of Vijaya carried no less than 1,500 passengers. After touching at several places which, according to some authorities, lay on the western coast of the Deccan, the fleet reached the shores of Ceylon, approaching the island from the southern side. The date of Vijaya's landing in Ceylon is said to have been the very day on which another very important event happened in the far-off fatherland of Vijaya, for it was the day on which the Buddha attained the Nirvāṇa. Vijaya was next installed as king, and he became the founder of the "Great Dynasty."
- ↑ Griffiths, The Paintings in the Buddhist Cave-Temples of Ajanta, p. 17.
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