The One Who was Against the PavvajjāMonika Zin

The pavvajjā/supravrajyā, nikkhama/abhiniṣkramaṇa, or the act of leaving the worldly lifein favour of life as a wandering ascetic searching for enlightenment, as was done by allthe Buddhas, all the Jinas and all their followers, is the most saintly act of the highestreligious value. Could anybody dare to be openly against it? And could such a person berepresented in art, in the very paintings and reliefs in the same monasteries where themonks who had left the worldly life were living?

The answer to this question is yes. A person meeting that description has beenrepresented many times. He is to be seen nearby in scenes where future ascetics areleaving the profane world, and he is against it, decisively and desperately against it: thejester.

It was in 1998 when I identifed the court jester in numerous paintings andsculptures in Ajanta and in art contemporary to Ajanta, as well as in art that followed(Zin 1998 and 2003, vol. pp. 242–46). Later on (ZIN 2015, forthcoming) I found him in stillearlier representations as well, in reliefs in Andhra and Mathura.

The iconography of the jester in art corresponds quite precisely with descriptions ofthe theatrical jester, the vidūṣaka, given in the Nāṭyaśāstra, the old Indian treatise on thetheatre. In Indian dramas the jester vidūṣaka commonly appears as a companion of thehero. The Nāṭyaśāstra says that he has to carry the staf called ‘the bent one’ (kuṭila orkuṭilaka) in the left hand;1 the staf is wooden and bent three times over. The head of thevidūṣaka is described as bald but bearing the ‘crow-foot’ (kāka-pada).2 This strange idiombecomes understandable while reading with the foregoing verses of the Nāṭyaśāstra,which gives instructions regarding the appearance of children and servants on thestage: they should wear tufts of hair (śikhās) on their (otherwise shaven) heads. Also thekāka-pada of the vidūṣaka must be interpreted as a special sort of tuft. With these twomain attributes, ‘the bent one’-stick, reminding one of a snake, and the ‘crow-foot’ onthe top of the head, the vidūṣaka was not only described in the theatrical treatise butalso realized on stage, which can be discerned from several expressions in the oldIndian dramas.3 This is also how the court jester is shown in art (Fig. 1): holding thekuṭilaka in his hand and the appearance of his head with the kāka-pada, is peculiar andreserved only for him. In earlier art, in Amaravati,4 Nagarjunakonda and Mathura (Fig.2), the kāka-pada corresponds very well with its name and shows three whips of hair

1 Nāṭyaśāstra XIII,143–144; 179–180 (ed. vol. 2, p. 21, tr. p. 231; ed. 164; tr.. pp. 430–31);Nāṭyaśāstra XXIII, for quotations cf. Zin 1998 or 2015, forthcoming.

2 Nāṭyaśāstra XXIII,151, ed. vol. 2, p. 161; tr.. p. 433.3 E.g. Mṛcchakaṭika I, ed. + tr. p. 48; ed. + tr.. p. 54.4 For example in the court scene from the Campakajātaka represented in a medallion form

Amaravati in British Museum, no. 17; cf. Knox 1992, p. 65, no. 14; with references to foregoingpublications.

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falling from the crown of the head which look very much like a bird’s foot. Later, in 5 th

century Ajanta and afterwards, the kāka-pada gets a diferent shape: (Fig. 3a–b) the tuftsof hair are arranged in tiny buns, which have often been decorated with fowers orpearls.

The theatrical character of the vidūṣaka has very much in common with the jester inreal life and his appearance was probably taken from the court jester — or perhaps thecourt jesters were styled after the stage character of the vidūṣaka. However, it is notonly the appearance of the jester which demonstrates his inherent afnity with thetheatrical vidūṣaka. It is also the kind of humour that he displays. On stage the vidūṣakais a Brahmin, though he speaks Prakrit, and his high social status clashes with hisunabashed gluttony. In art the amusing efect was evoked by showing him in a strangepose on bent legs, probably illustrating the fact that he limps (this is how the Nātya-śāstra directs the actor to portray him).5 Sometimes (like in Fig. 3) he is depicted withhands tied with a cord. Quite often he carries a bowl with sweets. All of this is portrayedin connection with the Brahmanical attributes he displays: the holy string yajñopavitaand the rosary to recite the mantras (Figs 4a-b).6

The kind of humour the theatrical vidūṣaka puts on show illustrating his guzzlingand blundering ignorance of religious matters — as in amusing dialogues in the dramas,in which he mixes up generally known literary titles or mythological tales — obtains anew dimension in the context of Buddhist art: the jester is shown protesting against thedecision of his master or mistress when they are leaving the worldly life. Only thewhole context of our Fig. 4 demonstrates the mode of operation in which his characteris being applied in the representation (Fig. 5):7 the painting shows a wealthy coupleleaving their comfortable home to join the Buddhist order. The painter shows theprocession with two main personages characterized by honorifc umbrellas andsurrounded by an entourage progressing towards the (city?) gate on the viewer’s left. Itis only the jester who is moving in the opposite direction. He makes his opinion unmis-takably clear to the viewer as regards the scene unfolding around him, while he holds abowl of sweets under one arm, as if to protect them, and displays with his right hand agesture which can be read only as his loud shout “no-no-no!”

Yet the picture shows us still more: the jester is placed in the very middle of thecomposition, in the front, and the difering direction of his body underlines the signif-cance of the personage and of his role in the representation. It appears as though he is apart of a visual language which should evoke the immediate understanding of thedepicted topic: it is the supravrajyā that we observe here. It is quite possible that theprotesting jester is represented in such scenes to make the act of leaving the worldlylife appreciable.

5 Nāṭyaśāstra XIII,137, ed. vol. 2, p. 20, tr. p. 230; the verse must be read with the foregoing. 6 Fig. 4: Ajanta XVII, veranda, left rear wall, for the references to the depicted story cf. the

following footnote.7 Fig. 5: Ajanta XVII, veranda, left rear wall, copy Grifths 17c, illus. e.g. in: Grifths 1896–97,

vol. 1, pl. 58; Yazdani 1930–55, vol. 3, pl. 66; Okada/Nou 1991, p. 168; Behl 1998, pp. 160, 162;Takata 2000, vol. 3, pl. 17–5; cf. Schlinglof 2000/2013, no. 69, vol. 1, pp. 399–401, the narrative ofUdāyin.

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The visual message which the scene presents does not seem to be the invention ofthe Ajanta painters but rather appears to have been adopted from models dating some150 years earlier, in the reliefs of Andhra. In several reliefs from Nagarjunakonda, suchas in the one in the Musée Guimet,8 or the one in the depot of the ArchaeologicalMuseum at the site (Fig. 6), the jester is accompanying the hero to the monastery. Herehe is shown frst, while the hero (the story depicted has not yet been identifed, so wedo not know who he is) wanders to the monastery (right scene). He is shown againabove the hero, always holding his bent staf, when the hero has reached the monasteryand is praising the Buddha there and apparently asking for permission to join his order.

The visual message of the representation as “taking leave of the worldly life” musthave been generally understood by the viewer, thanks to the person with the kuṭilaka inthe hand and the kāka-pada on the head, the jester, as the embodiment of court life.

It is a very interesting fact that the tradition of representing the jester was broughtover to the Buddhist paintings in Kucha on the northern Silk Road (cf. Arlt/Hiyamaforthcoming). The kāka-pada there takes the form of round tufts of hair often decoratedwith fowers or beads, i.e. strongly recalling the paintings in Ajanta. Arlt & Hiyama callthe personage “vidūṣaka” and that with good reason, considering the performancetraditions in the Kucha area which might have been of importance in the creation ofthe paintings, as well as the tradition of the Buddhist theatrical text in Tocharian (i.e.the vernacular language of the area) which also includes the personage of the vidūṣaka.Interestingly, the jester was likewise represented among other scenes in Kuchapaintings demonstrating his dismay about the decision of his master or mistress to jointhe order, as we can see for example in the representation of the Udrāyanāvadāna fromthe cave 83 in Kizil (Fig. 7).

It is very likely that representations of the jester at the moment when the hero isleaving the profane world had specifc connections to Buddhist theatrical literature outof which, however, rarely anything has come down to us. The vidūṣaka appears in thosetexts as well, of course, from the earliest date, in the dramas preserved in manuscriptfragments found in Kizil, one of which is the Śāriputraprakaraṇa of Aśvaghoṣa, where heparodies a Buddhist monk, talking — how could it be otherwise — about food: “hungry, Iwander on my way….”.9

But let us return to Ajanta. In cave XVI there is a much-telling representationdepicting somebody trying to impede the ordination of a monk. The story portrayed is afamous one about the conversion of Buddha’s step-brother Nanda.10 The Buddha tookhis enamoured brother to the monastery against his will; it was only later that Nandaunderstood the wrongness of his opinions in preferring sensual love over the strugglefor spiritual perfection. He had not come to this realisation yet when he was ordainedas a monk in the monastery outside of the city of Kapilavastu. As the painting shows(Fig. 8) Nanda looks quite desolate when his hair is being sheared, preparing him for the

8 Paris, Musée Guimet, no. MG 17069; illus.: Hackin 1931, pl. 1; Bachhofer 1934, pl. 2.5;Auboyer/Nou 1982, pl. 82; Zin 2015, forthcoming, fg. 16.

9 Cf. Lüders 1911a, p. 24; cf. also Lüders 1911b and from the newer literature Franco/Schlinglof 2011–12 with many references.

10 For the references to the literary and pictorial tradition of the narrative cf. Schlinglof2000/2013, no. 73, vol. 1, pp. 415–25; or ZIN 2006, no. 9, pp. 167–90.

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ordination. A piece of the painting above Nanda, showing the barber and some otherpersons, was removed from the wall and found its way to the Museum of Fine Arts inBoston, where it is today. In 1968 Begley recognized that the fragment belongs to thenarrative of Nanda. To the best of my knowledge, the reconstructed photography of thepainting with the Boston fragment inserted is being presented here for the frst time.

An interesting consideration with regard to this paper is the fact that the personwho is trying to put a stop to the shearing of Nanda’s head is in fact our jester. The tuftsof hair on his head are distinctly visible; it may even be that the fragment of thepainting was removed just because of the interesting hair style of the person. It is thendefnitely the same person who is bringing Nanda’s crown to his wife Sundarī (Fig. 9).

I began this paper with “pavvajjā”, the term for leaving the worldly life in the Jainascriptures. Can we suppose that the same jester could perhaps be represented in Jainaart also? This cannot be ruled out, at the very least due to the existence of one relief.The religious context of this relief which was excavated in Mathura (Katra) has notbeen established. The excavations in Katra have been previously associated with thereligious context of Buddhism, but the excavations were not extensive and the religiousafliation cannot be determined authoritatively for the entire site. The question ofwhich religion the following relief (Fig. 10) belongs to — perhaps Jaina — is open tofurther research. The relief has been explained as representing an ascetic, 11 but whencompared with the representations above it becomes clear that we are here dealingagain with our jester, easily recognisable by means of both his main attributes, thekuṭilaka and the kāka-pada. In context of the foregoing examples, the slightly bent legs,round belly and the right hand kept at the face — apparently expressing sorrow — gainmeaning. However, this does not appear to be all that is relevant. As in Fig. 1 the femaleguard, the prātihārī, is present, and like in Fig. 5 the (city?) gate characterising the situa-tion can be seen, the main personage of the narrative must have been represented onthe left, now lost part of the relief. What we see seems to be the pavvajjā/supravrajyā,nikkhama/abhiniṣkramaṇa, leaving worldly life to search for truth and enlightenment.We do not know today if it was the order of the Buddha or of the Jina, and we may,perhaps, never fnd the answer. Yet the truth remains the truth.

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