From Shwegugyi Temple complex, Ajapala Shrine, Pegu Ca. 1479
Glazed terracotta
H. 171/2 x W. 13 x D. 3 in. (44 x 33 x 7.6 cm)
© Asian Art Museum, Museum purchase, B86P14
30.
Mara’s daughter
From Shwegugyi Temple complex, Ajapala Shrine, Pegu Ca. 1479
Glazed terracotta
H. 18 x W. 13 x D. 4 in. (45.7 x 33 x 10.2 cm) National Museum, Nay Pyi Taw
After Mara’s minions were defeated at the end of the Bud- dha’s first week of meditation at Bodh Gaya, the demon’s three daughters advanced coquettishly toward the Buddha during his fifth week at Bodh Gaya. Allegorically represent- ing Desire, Aversion, and Lust, the daughters, as early Pali texts recount, cleverly reasoned that men’s tastes varied, with some “attracted by virgins . . . [and others] . . . by older
women.”1 The daughters therefore replicated themselves in
six different ways, from young, childless girls to older women. Each form is enumerated in a Mon stone inscription at the temple in Pegu, or Bago, dedicated to the fifth week at Bodh Gaya.
Over 160 tiles with female figures were found in the debris within the vicinity of the Shwegugyi Temple complex and were originally placed within two rows of parallel hori- zontal niches set into the inner face of the temple com- pound wall. Like this one, all of the tiles feature two women, facing toward the right, as if in procession, similar to the demons that are also depicted on tiles from this site. Only two known tiles depict a single female facing to the right, one is in this exhibition and the other is in the Kambazathadi Golden Palace Museum (see cat. no. 30). Perhaps these two rare tiles began and closed the series. That the backgrounds are cream colored and not green surely distinguished them from the others.
Many of the Shwegugyi Temple complex tiles bear Mon inscriptions along the top edge, each referring to one of the
six categories found in the nearby stone inscription.2 The
background is green, with figures in browns and cream col- ors. Whether the appearances among these females can be matched with the six categories of females noted in the descriptive captions has yet to be determined. Their poses and penetrating glances are no less alluring today than when they emerged from the kiln in Pegu in the middle of the second millennium.
DS
NOTES
1 Jayawickrama, Story of Gotama Buddha, 106. This text refers to six forms
that the daughters assumed, exactly paralleling the six types found in the fifteenth- century Mon stone inscription and the inscriptions on the tiles. The fifth week takes place in the vicinity of a goatherd’s banyan tree, or Ajapala (Pali).
2 The Mon inscription was edited and translated by Blagden, “Mon
Inscriptions Nos. IX–XI,” 1–16. The inscription’s date is missing the last of its three numerals, but it probably was dedicated on the same day and year (1479) as an inscription at the site connected to the sixth week commemo- rating the snake- king shielding the Buddha. Charles Duroiselle “unearthed over 160” tiles in the compound of this shrine in 1914; see Archaeological Survey of India 1914–1915, pt. 1: 23, pl. XX (a). Today the locations of no more
than fifty tiles depicting the daughters of Mara are known. A literal translation of the inscription on our tile (“Mara’s daughters assuming the shape of not having a child”) has been provided by Christian Bauer. Other inscriptions record daughters with one child or two children.
148 CATALOGUE
Mon captions incised along the upper edge that describe the nature of their weaponry. A smaller number of tiles show the demons in retreat. These two types of tiles were placed within two parallel, horizontal rows of niches, but old descrip- tions make it unclear if there was a special order in their placement. The palette for the figures is restricted to mainly
brown and green, juxtaposed against a buff- colored surface.2
ds
NOTES
1 Stadtner, “King Dhammaceti’s Pegu” and “Fifteenth- Century Royal
Monument in Burma.” No more than a hundred tiles from this site can be traced today in Myanmar and abroad.
2 In the late 1980s, a second set of demons from the same period came
onto the international art market; these probably surrounded a large, damaged reclining brick Buddha located near Pegu’s famous recumbent Buddha known as the Shwethalyaung. Yamamura Michio, Nazo no seramikku roodo ten. A handful of tiles that were not smuggled to Thailand
and abroad are displayed next to the newly rebuilt recumbent Buddha.
Two beastly brutes enlisted in Mara’s army are featured in this tile from Pegu in Lower Myanmar. This was one of two to three hundred demon tiles that were once set into niches on the inner face of a compound wall that encompassed the Shwegugyi Temple, Pegu’s replica of the Mahabodhi Temple in India.
The ruling Mon king, Dhammazedi (ca. 1472–ca. 1492), sponsored a huge complex of brick monuments commemo- rating certain episodes in the Buddha’s biography, such as the Buddha receiving washing stones from the god Indra. The centerpiece was a group of monuments dedicated to the special seven- week period that the Buddha spent at Bodh Gaya at the time of the enlightenment, with the Mahabodhi Temple placed in the center. Most of the brick shrines are
now in ruins, while a few have been rebuilt in modern times.1
The demons are shown paired, advancing toward the right, usually with weapons drawn. Some tiles bear short