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B.N. Goswamy picks on a simple story that can be a metaphor for life While speaking of layers of meaning in works of art, especially to students, I often bring in, as an illustration, an old Jain tale that works at one level as a straightforward but engaging story, and, at another, as a parable in which is reflected a whole view of life. Part of the great oral tradition of India, the story must have been told, around warm hearths and by loving hearts, generation after generation. And I have always thought it is worth sharing. In the tale, a Guru, seated in his ashrama, addresses a pupil who had come to him, seeking knowledge. He talks of a man (named Samaraditya, in some versions) who, long ago, left his home one day and went into a forest. The forest was lovely and deep, and the man wandered in it for so long that he lost his way and could not retrace his steps. Suddenly, as the day began to advance and light began to fade, he was seized by anxiety, and in that distracted state he would take one path first, and then abandon it, finding it fruitless; then take another but still not find his way. While he was floundering, suddenly, from one direction, a great elephant, mountainous of form, came charging at him, trumpeting and furious. Samaraditya ran for his life, losing the pursuing elephant for a while; but then, from a thicket, he saw an ogress come at him, sword in hand, partially clad, hair dishevelled, roaring. Trembling with fear, Samaraditya started running again, this time to escape from her. Panting for breath, he reached a spot where some trees had been cut, but one large tree stood. For a while, he thought of climbing the tree to save himself from those pursuing him, but then found the trunk too large and the climb hard. His eyes then fell upon a pit at the foot of the tree, looking like an abandoned well, at the rim of which some long wild reeds he saw growing. Finding them strong, and hoping that they would hold, he seized them and decided to lower himself with their help in the well so as not to be visible from a distance to his pursuers. There he hung for a while, suspended in the air; as he looked down, however, he saw, at the dark bottom of the well, hundreds of flashing eyes. It was a snake-pit, and Samaraditya knew that he would survive only if the reeds did not give way. But then he looked up, and his eyes fell upon two rats, one black and the other white, which had started nibbling at the roots of the very reeds that he was hanging by. He knew now that he would last only till the rats had cut across the roots, but, even in this desperate state, he hung on. But then he heard the running steps of the elephant that had been in pursuit of him. The elephant arrived at the spot; not finding his quarry, however, the beast began to butt the trunk of the tree with his forehead in frustration. At this, the mighty tree heaved and shook, and this dislodged a bee-hive that was up there in the branches of the tree: countless bees then swarmed out of it and made directly for the well where the man was, suspended in mid-air. Enraged as they were, they stung him all over the body but, in the process, from the bee-hive also had fallen one drop of honey that landed on the forehead of Samaraditya, trickled slowly down the ridge of his nose, and went into his mouth. But so sweet was that drop of honey, the Guru said, that, for that brief moment, the man forgot all the troubles that he was in. This seemingly was the end of the tale. The pupil had found it riveting, but then, rightly, he turned to ask his Guru the point of this narration when all he had come to seek was knowledge, and the gaining of wisdom. At this, the Guru said: "Now hear from me the true meaning of the tale." Understand that the man, Samaraditya, is the human soul ; the home he leaves behind is the Kingdom of God; the forest is Samsara from which it is difficult to come out; the elephant is Death, and the ogress Old Age, from which he seeks to escape; the tree with the large trunk is the one path to Salvation that he should have taken but did not; the reeds by which he hangs are the span of human existence and the two rats the dark and the bright half of a fortnight, meaning Time; the snakes at the bottom of the pit are all the human passions, and the bees that sting him diseases that man is subject to. And that one drop of honey is the fleeting moment of sukh, in the midst of countless troubles (sarvam dukham, as the Jains say), that one experiences. The story, with its rich narrative content, invites illustration. But, surprisingly, only an occasional folio treating of the theme, and generally not very well painted, turns up from the past. However, having heard the story, and touched by it, a group of art students at the Punjabi University, decided to turn out, entirely on their own and as a collective effort, a series of 17 works based on it. These are all in the
form of graphic prints, and I find them absorbing. Since these will be
on view soon in an exhibition at Chandigarh, I thought this is another
thing that I should share with the readers. |
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