I was in Pagan examining some of the beautiful although mostly much faded paintings in its
temples and I noticed something I have never seen in Buddhist art before. There
was a picture of the Buddha in the earth-touching gesture
and on the pedestal (asana) below him
was not the usual two deer, two lions or
two elephants, but a herd of goats. Goats! Seven of them! – a billy goat and his mate,
two youngsters rearing up and butting their heads, a mother and her kid and another one just standing there. I was
intrigued, so I took a photograph of the
picture.
A few hours later at the Pagan
Museum I was in the upstairs gallery
looking at all the Buddha images. On the pedestals of all the statues were the
usual symbols and depictions – lions, deer, portraits of donors, Dhamma wheels,
etc. But one stood out as being different from all the others. It showed a goat with a rope around its neck being pulled by a
man. Now I was even more intrigued. I went downstairs, asked to see the
curator, and after a few moments waiting, was ushered in to her office. I told
her about the painting and the statue pedestal
and asked her what the goats could mean. Her polite smile could not disguise her
discomfort at not knowing. She picked up the phone and a few minutes another
woman appeared, apparently the curator
of the images, an animated discussion ensued, and even though I know no Burmese I could see
from this second woman’s face that the
goats were a mystery to her too. Still
smiling the curator picked up the phone
again, talked for a minute, wrote down a number and after hanging up, rung it. While waiting for a
reply she turned to me and whispered, “I’m
getting Professor XYZ in Rangoon.” When she got the professor there was a long discussion and then the phone
was handed to me. “The goats are about the Ajapala Nigrodha” he explained, hesitantly
and completely without conviction.
Clearly the matter was a mystery to him too and he was taking a stab in the goat-inhabited
darkness. The Ajapala Nigrodha, the
Goatherd’s Banyan, he was referring to is
of course the tree at Bodh Gaya where the Buddha spent the second week after
his enlightenment (Vinaya I,2). I thanked the curator for her attention and
efforts to help and then continued on my way. As I
passed through the museum’s gates onto the road I was met by a small herd of goats. They walked
passed me, but one stopped for a moment to stare at me with her big brown eyes,
then hurried to join the others.
Can anyone explain why goats
should be depicted on the pedestal of a
Buddha image? Or does
anyone know of other examples of this?
6 comments:
Bhante, could it be related to Matakabhatta Jataka The Goat That Laughed and Wept (Jat 18)?
A wild guess here, maybe a Buddhist version of Jesus as The good shepherd possibly influenced by Nestorian Christianity perhaps?
The script below may be the key.
In many cultures the goat symbolizes sensual desire. Maybe the Buddha is represented as having "tamed" sensual desire?
Bhante, I discovered your blog last year while following links to Vimala Thakar's life and teachings. The solid scholarship, wide-ranging curiosity and good humor I have found here keep me coming back for every entry. Thanks so much! This blog is a generous gift.
Dear Javen, goats occasionally appear in the Jatakas but so do crabs, rabbits, crows, fish, buffalos, etc. but out of all these and others why goats? Dear Brahmavihara, Jesus is the good shepherd and his disciples are sheep. The Buddha once compared his disciples to deer (miga) – gentle, alert and living in the forest. And of course deer often appear on the pedestals of Buddha statues. But I know of nowhere where his disciples are compared to goats. So it would appear that the mystery remains. But you are right in saying that the key to unlocking the mystery may be found in the script below the painting, which unfortunately I cannot read. And Russell, thanks for the bouquets. Always welcome.
Maybe this is a kind of "goat wheel of becoming", I can't see a dying goat but all the other phases of life are represented. Why Goats are chosen as symbol of life and death in this case(assuming that my hypothesis is correct) still remains a puzzle. I know that in ancient Rome there was a fertility ritual,known as Lupercalia and celebrated 14 February (St Valentines) where a man dressed in a goat skin would symbolically "ravage" the unmarried young women and that the ritual is still carried out in Morrocco to this day called beau Jeloud as I recall. So maybe there is a link to the illustration as The Buddha is able to tame even this legendary potent force, just a guess.
From Dictionary of Pali Proper Names, it is said that one of the reason why Ajapala Nigroda has its name because "it shelters the goats that seek its shade at midday (UdA.51)."
See more on http://www.palikanon.com/english/pali_names/am/ajapala_nigrodha.htm
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