Vessantara's wife encounters a lion, tiger, and leopard, a scene from the next-to-last life of the Buddha (Vessantara Jataka)
Matted: H. 28 in × W. 22 1/16 in (71.1 cm × 56 cm)
Complete sets of the standard thirteen paintings for the recitation of the story of Prince Vessantara are extremely rare. Once a set of paintings was used in a recitation it might not have been used again, and no particular provision may have been made to preserve it. The number of single paintings or small groups of paintings surviving from sets suggests that sets were often broken up and dispersed.
This set [2006.27.80.1-.13] probably about 120 years old, remains in fair condition. Most details of the paintings, though scratched and abraded, can still be made out, but the inscriptions along the bottom edges have suffered considerable damage and are now only partly legible.
Just as the recitation of the "Great Life" was sometimes accompanied by sound effects and naughty side-stories, in this set of paintings the artist enlivens the main story with bawdy vignettes, monkeyshines, and amusing anachronisms. The artist's interest in some aspects of classical Western landscape painting is also apparent.
[2006.27.9] Chapter 9
The children's mother returns home with the food she has collected, but is delayed-so she will not have to witness, and will not interfere with, her husband's exercise of perfect charity- by three gods who take the form of wild beasts. When she arrives at the hermitage and learns what has happened, she faints with grief. Eventually, though, she is persuaded that the most painful self-denial, even to the point of giving up one's children, is meritorious.
Vessantara's wife is shown twice, walking along and then pleading with the wild beasts to let her pass. At upper right we see an earlier moment when Indra instructs the three gods to assume the shapes of animals and hinder her progress.
