Government of India
Cave 17
- Ṣaḍdanta
Description :
Story:
Found also in the oldest cave at Ajanta, the painting has beautiful illustrations of wildlife in the forest scenes.
Story:
Ṣaḍdanta is a virtuous six-tusked elephant whose first-wife grows jealous Ṣaḍdanta's second-wife. She commits suicide and is reborn as a human queen. She fakes illness and asks the king to get her a paste made from the tusks of a six-tusked elephant. Hunters are commissioned to find Ṣaḍdanta who upon realising that his tusks could save a life, plucks them out and hands them to the hunter. Upon seeing the tusks, the queen is overcome with remorse and collapses.
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