Tree and Serpent Worship

·期刊原文
Tree and Serpent Worship

By S. Beal
The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland
New Series, 1888, pp. 547-548

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p. 547

DEARS SIR,-I should like to address a few words
to you, for the consideration of the Members of your
Society, as to the meaning of the emblems, found (in
pl. xxxiv. Tree and Serpent Worship, 1st ed.) in the
hand of the Prince there represented. Mr. Fergusson
was quite it a loss to explain the meaning of these
emblems (p.133, o.c.).

I think the two figures on the plate named refer
to the young Prince Siddartha going out to the joust,
of which we have such ample record in the Buddhist
legends.

This appears to be proved by the figure of the
elephant in the first group. We read that "when the
young Prince was hardly grown up, the Licchavis of
Vaisali offered him an elephant of exceptional beauty
... which they led to Kapilavastu, and covered with
jewels," etc. (Rockhill, "Life of the Buddha," p.
19).

This is the elephant that Devadatta killed, and
Nanda pulled on one side, and the young Prince raised
and hurled over the walls, into the elephant-ditch.

I think this and the whole entourage of the scene
shows that the design of the sculptor, or donor of
the gateway, was to represent the exit of the Prince
from the Gate of Kapilavastu on his way to the
games about to be held between the Sakya youths.

What then is the emblem in the hands of the
Prince?

p. 548

Mr. Fergusson compares it to the form of a dumb-bell,
"two balls joined together like a dumb-bell."

But I think it has a curious meaning, viz. that
of the mappa, "which was held in the right hand of a
Consul, which he threw into the arena as a signal for
the games to commence."

For a representation of the shape of the mappa I
will refer you to plates xxiii. and xxiv. of
Marriot's " Vestiarium Christianum."

The plates there shown are photographed from
facsimiles in fictile ivory, published by the
"Arundel Society."

It is almost certain that the Indian custom of
Public games, or jousts, was an extension of the
same custom prevalent from earliest date in the
Western portions of Asia, us at Dindymus; and as the
image of Cybele worshipped there was carried to Rome
during the Punic wars, it is likely that the customs
observed at those games were borrowed also by the
Romans; and this is all the more likely as the word
mappa is said to be a Punic word: so that the use of
this folded towel as a signal to begin the games
(something like the modern sponge in prize-fights)
was probably borrowed by the Northern Tribes who
passed into India, and especially by the Sakyas, a
chivalrous stud exotic race.

Comparing then the mappa, as seen in the plates
of Marriott's book, with the "dumb-bell" instrument
in the hand of the Prince Siddartha in "Tree and
Serpent Worship" in the plates (referred to above), I
think we may find an explanation of the emblems there
represented.