Mathura: Valahassa Jataka

INDIA, Uttar Pradesh, Mathura

This is part of a railing post from Bhuteshwar, Mathura. It illustrates Pali Jataka No. 196, the Valahassa Jataka, where the Buddha was reborn as a flying-horse. He saves a party of shipwrecked merchants. The island where the merchants beached was inhabited by goblins who used to transform themselves into beautiful women and, having seduced those cast ashore, later devoured them.
The post is divided into three registers with architectural elements cleverly used as dividers and borders. On the top register, the leader of the merchants climbs a tree and witnesses his companions being imprisoned in a tower and crying for help. In the middle, the flying-horse is saving the merchant against a background of sea waves. The bottom register has been further separated into two sections; the upper section shows the transformed goblins and merchants engaging in sexual congress; below, the goblins resume their true forms as they eat those they have deceived.