In addition to the usual adornments, this one had several striking statues.
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It seemed to me that these scenes were a kind of warning or rebuke. Both depict an apparently rich and important person ignoring the misery and suffering surrounding them. The man appears understandably uncomfortable and is clearly trying to hurry past.
While I was resting in the shade, I ended up getting into a long conversation with one of the monks and the monastery's English teacher. When I asked about the statues, the monk told me that they were to remind us that suffering and death are an unavoidable part of life. I asked if the man on the elephant should be doing something to help. The monk said that it is good to help each other, but when I pressed him about whether that was the point of the statues he seemed confused.
I finally figured out what was going on when he said that the rich man was Siddhārtha. (In retrospect, it seems like something that I should have thought of earlier, but there you go). I remembered from the novel Siddhartha that he had lived a sheltered life as a teenager. When he finally left home and saw old age, suffering, and death for the first time, he was so upset that he decided to lead the life of an acetic in effort to overcome them. With this in mind, the monk's original explanation made a lot more sense. The point really has nothing to do with people's rights, duties, and obligations to one another. It really is a reminder about cultivating the right inner attitude towards what is, after all, your own situation. It was an interesting contrast.
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