This is an allegorical painting. The seeker seeks out the meaning of the mystery of life - the jewel of great price. The forces of nature ( the stags), the dragon that guards the jewel, and the path of inner searching and the necessary asceticism and hardships are to be faced and accepted with the trusting simplicity of a child. The child symbolises the trusting soul, the mother -universal love smiles at the child who longs for truth. The lotus of the heart bloems and the truth is revealed.
The dragon is also an ouroboros - world-wide symbol for the eternal circle of disintegration and re-integration, destruction and renewal.In Hinduism and Buddhism it symbolises the wheel of samsara.