Dear Prof Koch,

Your example and illustrations are of course rather curious. They are unknown to the early 19th c. Newari Vess too (as reproduced by the late Siegfried Lienhard).

However, even for (older) Pali only, the weighing of woman is not unknown. In the Therīgāthā (v. 153), the nun Anopamā (‘Unsurpassed’), daughter of a wealthy merchant, is courted by princes and proposed by merchants for eight times her weight (Masset 2005: 52, ‘huit fois l’équivalent en or et pierres précieuses!’; and the cty as transl. by Pruitt 1998: 179–180, ‘what she weighs as measured by those who know marks’). For a context, see my "Karma accounts: supplementary thoughts on Theravāda, Madhyamaka, theosophy, and Protestant Buddhism, Religion, 43:4, 487-498, with an addendum 
https://www.academia.edu/4245222/Karma_accounts_supplementary_thoughts_on_Therav%C4%81da_Madhyamaka_theosophy_and_Protestant_Buddhism

As far as I know, the best recent work on the tūlāpuruṣa belongs to Annette Schmiedchen:

2003. “Die Tūlāpuruṣa-Zeremonie: Das rituelle Aufwiegen des Herrschers gegen
Gold.” Beiträge des Südasien-Instituts der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin 12: 21–49.

and

2006. The Ceremony of Tūlāpuruṣa: The Puranic Concept and the Epigraphical
Evidence. In Script and Image. Papers on Art and Epigraphy, eds. Adalbert J. Gail, Gerd J. R. Mevissen,
Richard Salomon, Proceedings of the 12th World Sanskrit Conference 11.1, New Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass, 145–184.

Kind regards,
Eugen Ciurtin
(Institute for the History of Religions, Bucharest)

2014-10-28 11:54 GMT+02:00 Rolf Heinrich Koch <rolfheiner.koch@gmail.com>:
Dear listmembers,
continous paintings of the Vessantara-Jataka murals in Sri Lankan monasteries
depict always an episode which I cannot trace back to Pali-, buddhist Sanskrit or
Tibetean sources.
 
It is the following episode (picture attached):
the Brahman Jujaka gets for the release of Vessantara's daughter
golden coins accoring to the weight of this girl. The murals depicting
always a balance with Kṛṣṇajalī (the daughter) sitting in one
scale pan, coins are visible the second pan.
 
Now I could find the description of this part of the mural in the Sinhalese tradition (13th century).
Did anyone came across literal descriptions with a similar content?
Probably in Chinese, Burmese or Siam sources?
 
Best
 
Heiner
 
(Rolf Heinrich Koch)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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