38. The teaching in the school
When the Bodhisattva had taken a writing-tablet made of uragasara-sandelwood of a rich color edged with gold and encrusted with jewels, he spake thus to the master Vic,vamitra: "Wed, teacher, what kind of writing wilt thou teach me ? Brahmi or Kharosl:i or ...." ? etc. And Vi,cvamitra the master replied smiling with a cheerful countenance and without any pride or selfconceit: "Marvellous it is, how the pure Being, having come to the world foUows the world's uses; learned in all castra's, yet he comes to the children's school. Writings of which I know not even the name, learned in these, yet he comes to the children's school."
And there, ten thousand boys learned writing with the Bodhisattva. While the boys spelled the alphabet, whenever the letter A was spoken, by the power of the Bodhisattva the sound was uttered : "A-II appearanceis transitory" etc. (125 :1 7; 1 26 :13; 127: 3).
The teaching goes on in two adjacent pendapa's. In the largest, on the right, sits (left) Vi,cvamitra, here, for some curious reason, beard ess though bearded in the last relief, and on the right the Bodhisattva with his knee held in the sling like a real prince, and just behind him two attendants in brahman-dress very much dilapidated; the rest of the servants and soldiers are next to the pendapa quite to the right. In the left-hand pendapa, on the roof of which four doves are perched, and at the side of it under a tree, the schoolmates are sitting, many with palmleaf rolls in their hand. This writing material commonly-used in Java has taken the place of the writing tablets found, according to the text, on the Gandhara-reliefs. On one of these tablets fragments of one of the verses known from the text, that was uttered at the speHing of the alphabet, could be recognised; so the Gandhara sculptor will have had the same passage from the Lalitavistara in mind. On these Gandharareliefs only the Bodhisattva is sitting, the others stand round him. The school is also to be seen at Ajanta, and in Serindia.