Despite the material splendors that surrounded him, a virtuous ruler was expected to rise above the distractions of court life. From early childhood—an age of three years was the usual starting point—royal heirs were educated in the ideals of hard work, clean living and devotion to the gods. Much of this instruction took the form of morality tales, like the ones illustrated at Ajanta. The parable depicted here warns of the horrifying consequences that could result from giving in to temptation.
This story describes a group of travelers whose ship ran aground on an island off the Indian coast. The island's inhabitants, according to the tale, were a tribe of cannibalistic ogresses who had the power to transform themselves into seductive maidens. In this guise, the ogresses lured the shipwrecked men with amorous entertainments. The travelers, suspecting no evil and willing to take their pleasure where they found it, responded eagerly. One of them is shown dallying with a voluptuous ogress in a silk-draped pavilion (center, foreground), while behind him to the right other ogresses wave enticingly.
But the travelers paid for their pleasure with their lives. At nightfall, the disguised demons reverted to their true form (left)—icy-eyed, frizzle-haired furies who cut the throats of their victims and drank their blood.
Such lurid lessons in the wages of sin were a cornerstone of education at courts that, rich beyond comparison and crowded with temptations to pleasure, governed the large and complex realms of the Mauryan emperors and the monarchs who were to succeed them.
World History
