The legend about the love of Tishya-rakshita, the young wife of King Asoka, for her stepson, Kunala, has a wide currency in South Asia and far beyond its frontiers. He rejected her love and was blinded on the orders of his enraged stepmother. This plot is common in many Sanskrit literary works of Gandhara (present Peshawar valley).
Taxila was the principal scene where Asoka built a stupa, at the exact spot where Kunala’s eyes were taken out. Parallel in the West are the stories of Constantine’s son, Crispus, and his stepmother, Fausta, and Hippolytus and Phaedra. Probably, the Kunala legend is derived from the Greeks of Balkh.
Kunala was the son of King Asoka and Queen Padmavati. His official name was Dharma Vivardhana, i.e. “expansion of the law.” When the ministers saw the child, they said to the king: “We know no man with eyes like his, but in the Himavat, the king of the mountains, is a bird called Kunala, with eyes which resemble those of your son.” Thus, the king ordered that the child should be called Kunala, too.
King Asoka with his young son, Kunala, went to the hermitage of Kukkuta one day where Saint Yasa saw the beautiful eyes of the prince and said that he would lose them. Kunala became sad and used to sit in a lonely place in the palace thinking over the fate of his eyes.
One day, Tishya-rakshita, the chief wife of Asoka, passed by and beheld Kunala who was alone. She took him in her arms and said: “Beneath thy ravishing glance, at the sight of thy beautiful form and thy radiant eyes, my whole body burns like dry straw consumed by a forest fire.”
At these words, Kunala, closing his ears with his hands, replied: “Cease to utter such guilty words in the presence of a son, for unto me you are as a mother. Renounce so perverse a passion; such a love will lead you to hell.”
But Tishya-rakshita, finding that she could not seduce him, said in wrath: “Since thou turnouts away from me when, transported with love, I offer myself unto thee, then know, O foolish prince, that not long hence thou shalt cease to live.”
“O mother,” replied Kunala, “lifer would I die; while persisting in my duty and remaining pure. I would not live a life which should deserve the censure of honest folk and the scorn and condemnation of the wise, a life which by closing against me the path to heaven, would lead of death.”
Henceforth, Tishya-rakshita thought of nothing but how to harm Kunala.
Taxila revolted at this time and Kunala was sent to suppress it. During this time, Asoka fell prey to a terrible disease at Pataliputra and was cured by Tishya-rakshita. As promised, he handed over royal powers to her for a week. Immediately, she sent a letter in the name of King Asoka to the citizens of Taxila to tear out Kunala’s eyes. It was stamped with the ivory seal of the king, which she had stolen from him at night.
The citizens of Taxila, after much hesitation, gave it to the prince. He informed them to implement the order of his father, but again they hesitated. Then there came forth an ugly man to tear out the eyes of the prince. The torturer began to do his work; and at that moment thousands of men lifted up their voices in lamentation. The prince thus meditated on the instability of all beings and was rewarded by attaining the state of “Srota-apatti”, the first stage in the Buddhist path to Nirvana. The torturer took out the other eye also and placed it in the hand of the prince.
Kunala knew that his suffering was not the work of his father, Asoka, but the intrigues of his stepmother, Tishya-rakshita.
Meanwhile, Kanchana-mala, Kunala’s wife, heard that the eyes of her husband had been put out. Straightaway, she rushed through the crowd to the place of torture and found him sightless and bleeding. She fainted and the bystanders brought water and endeavoured to restore her. She wept bitterly afterwards.
Kunala, wishing to console her, spoke thus: “Dry the tears; it behoveth thee not to give way to grief, Every man receiveth the reward of the deeds he hath committed in this world.”
Thereupon, Kunala and his wife left Taxila for Pataliputra. He knew only how to sing and how to play upon the vina. So he went about begging his bread and sharing with his wife that which he received.
Kunala touched his vina and began to sing. King Asoka recognized his voice and sent a guard to bring him. On seeing his blinded son, he received a terrible shock.
The king realized that his son was blinded by his evil wife and made up his mind to give her exemplary punishment. Kunala said: “O king, I feel no pain; and despite the cruelty I have suffered, the fire of wrath burneth not within me. In my heart there is naught but benevolence towards my mother, who commanded my eyes to be torn out.”
Hardly had he uttered these words when Kunala’s eyes appeared with all their former brilliance.
King Asoka threw Tishya-rakshita into the torture chamber where she died a fiery death and ordered the general massacre of the people of Taxila who had blinded his favourite and beloved son.
Hiunen Tsang, the Chinese pilgrim, visited Taxila in A.D. 630 and again in A.D. 643, on his return to China. He writes that the blind used to go to the stupa of Kunala and pray for the restoration of their eyesight. Many had their prayers answered.
Taxila was famous for the treatment of eyes in ancient times. There is a reference that a blind Chinese prince was treated and his eyesight was restored at Taxila. It is an interesting coincidence that the Mission Hospital is curing eye patients at Taxila today. Thus, the Kunala stupa on the hill still oversees the task of imparting vision to the sightless in the plains of Taxila.
