Look at the picture given below and answer the questions: (3)
(i) Where is this piece of sculpture found?
(ii) Give the tittle of the story made on it.
(iii) What do we learn from this story?
Answers
The Mahakapi Jataka is one of the Jataka tales or stories of the former lives of the Buddha, when he was still a Bodhisattva, as a king of the monkeys
The story runs that the Bodhisattva was born as a monkey, ruler over 80,000 monkeys. They lived at a spot near the Ganges and ate of the fruit of a great mango tree. King Brahmadatta of Benares, desiring to possess the mangoes, surrounded the tree with his soldiers, in order to kill the animals, but the Bodhisattva formed a bridge over the stream with his own body and by this means enabled the whole tribe to escape into safety.
Devadatta, the jealous and wicked cousin of the Buddha, was in that life one of the monkeys and, thinking it a good chance to destroy his enemy, jumped on the Bodhisattva’s back and broke his heart.
The king, seeing the good deed of the Bodhisattva and repenting of his own attempt to kill him, tended him with great care when he was dying and afterwards gave him royal obsequies