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| Latukika Jataka Bharhut now supposed to be in Allahabad museum |
In around 1874, Alexander Cunningham started excavating the Buddhist site at village Bharhut in Madhaya Pradesh. Among the many discoveries he made were wall sculptures depicting the Jataka tales, or the tales of Buddha’s previous births. Among these sculptures he found a tale that he had heard from a Kashmiri Muslim in 1839 when he was first visiting Kashmir as the ADC to Lord Auckland, the Governor-General of India.
We can’t say if the story survived because Jataka tales travelled to Persia and Persian language or if it was a remnants of Buddhist culture of Kashmir, what we can do is marvel at the fact that a Kashmiri recalled this story, albeit in a different form which shows the impact Buddhism had on the people far and away.
In the notes to the sculpture, he narrates the Latukika/Quail Tale from Cylon and the Thrush tale from Kashmir.
[The Stûpa of Bharhut, Cunningham, 1879]
