Bibliothek SfG/MfG Zürich s bf QÖ - ■*aX- *3 t>\ Os $p»i> :> v ? > & >w-v V: *V v •. x .*■ y. i ■ • Xi BIBLIOTHEK DES KUNSTGEWERBEMUSEUMS DES STADT ZÜRICH * ßlßUQIHEK DES KUNSTGEWERBEMUSEUMS m STADT ZÜRICH THE BEGINNINGS OF BUDDHIST ART «• 1K Printed for PAUL GEUTHNER by A. BURDJN. — F. GAULTIER and A. TH&BERT, Succ rs , Angers, France. 4 M £ V % * ** mm sfefcj&fe- jra&’W: Z'-'i ■'«Jfttp: •:-’-.r.a : ' 8 M 3?4v^-: SrSi ■i-L-sXÜ !&ä3S&: Cd z :»^är E -1 ec O o Uh .£ £ 2 •«JüÜJSLV, hA^as-, : :v i-uud *** •** ■& SSSlsJ*! »K.i?.- VvV ' v MB SSSi? •vr^ v ^ Jt‘ *V' : i«; * *&&$ ;&$Hf ■'•'S«' äÄ^söfa.^'- mm? •*W’ iüf? J«*;. 5a v£j ?*S« *4 •^♦M' v^r 4 ' -jh 1 : .t*££' c^S^: ■•■ ■ .v ■/\ ey ( &• *v.- , w l <*«• , %’rfM ’M.v ' 'ir. »] m*m 3WJF.1 -■"'VirtM -sSfcr« HÄRITI, THE 3UDDHIST MADONNA Essay IX 1 NOW IN MUSEUM FÜR VÖLKERKUNDE, BERLIN Prrawj '«Ha 4M. ' * ■41R4e: > h-f ^4: i V >:'vl'^ a.i .»» ;«■ -v S.,aa»t ;!‘J^ ». ir» -W* siEsÄj r rv;, 'üe«fä ■r.ea iiisB .4- ! •v~>T- £F*£*--; THE BEGINN1NGS OF BUDDHIST ART AND OTHER ESSAYS IN INDIAN AND CENTRAL-ASIAN ARCILEOLOGY 5 I ä | BY | A. FOUCHER | OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS t REVISED BY THE AUTHOR AND TRANSLATED BY L. A. THOMAS and F. W. THOMAS WITH A PREFACE BY THE LATTER ‘PARIS PAUL GEUTHNER 13, RUE JACOB, 13 MCMXVII LONDON HUMPHREY MILFORD AMEN CORNER, E. C. DED1CATED WITH PROFOUND RESPECT AND AFFECTIONATE REGARD TO M. AUGUSTE BARTH Member of Ihe Institute : MASTER OF PENETRAT1NG AND CREATIVE CRITICISM IN ALL BRANCHES OF SANSKRIT LEARNING June 1914 TREFACE To the rather limited circle of scholars interested in Indian Art and Archxology thework of M. Foucher requires no introduction. His numerous studies devoted to these subjects, and in particular his comprehensive treatise on the Grxco-Buddhist Art of Gandhdra, have fully established his Position as a leader in this sphere. A collective edition of his essays and addresses, dispersed in various serial and periodical publications, will therefore be sure of a warm welcome. The translators do not disavow a hope that this English Version may appeal not only to those readers, chiefly in the East, to whom the author's original presents a difßculty, but also to a rather wider public in England and America. Aware of the interest which in Paris attended the delivery of M. Foucher’s lectures, they would regret ij the charm had sofar evaporated in translation as to forfeit a share in the growing appreciation of Oriental art. Buddhism — for it is especially Buddhist monuments that are here sur- veyed — is. of course, a subject of vast extent. Wemay add that it is a highly organic subject, and that the study of it is still at a specially interesting stage, the stage of discovery. Wexannot touch it in any part without evoking res- ponses fromdistant and unexpectedquarters. We might compare it to a magic carpet ; we fix upon some well defined iopic, relating, let us say, to the Grxco- Buddhist school of Gandhdra, and prompt ly, even without our volition, some analogy or connection transports us to the Central Asia, China or Japan of many centuries later, even if we have not to continue ourflighl to Java in the ninth Century or Cambodia in the twelfth. The reader will find in these pages abundant examblesof such transitions. The first essays reach back bya highly ingenious and probable hypothesis to the very origins of Buddhist art in India itself, and give us the measure of its possibilities by what it bas achieved at Sdncht and Barhut. Already we detect some traces of foreign influettce, from the Persia of the Achxmenids Soon an abrupt irruption of Hellenistic art VIII PREFACE overwhelms the native schools, and creates a repertory of religious composi- tions, which the Buddhist Propaganda carries to Central Asia, the Far East, and the Malay islands. Thus is established a genetic connection between the religious art of Europe and Asia, a double efflorescence from orte root, most strikingly exemplified in the case of the Buddha type, which closely resctnbles the earliest sculptural type of Christ, and most curiously in that ofthe 'Tute- lary Pair’, found throughout the whole Buddhist sphere and at the satne time in ancient Gaul : or shall we claim the highest degree of intercst for the case of the 1 Madonna’ group {Essay IX), which — ultimately derived, in all probability, from ancient Egypt — has ended by conquering the whole world ? This splendid generalixation cannot fail to be fruitful, both on the European and on the Asiatic side, in inspiration for future researches : in the mean- while it may be welcomed as reestablishing by the aid of art that feeling of solidarity and sympathy between India and Europe, which flourished during the palmy days of Vedic studies, but latterly has been somewhat discouraged by specialism. Need we remark that, where religious art and archseology are the theme, literatureand literary history cannot befar away ? M. Fouchsrhas commented upon the predominantly narrative character of the bas reitefs with which he is dealing : it may indeed be said that, apart from purely decorative figures and Symbols, the great bulk of them are illustrations of scenes from the life of the Buddha. The life must, indeed, be conceived in an ample sense, according to that grandiose Indian conception whereby , as M. Foucher opportunely reminds us, the biography is not confined to a single span, but covers the whole series of countless births, under all forms of existence, which wcre necessary for the accumulation of the positive and negative characteristics manifested finally in the Great Being, the Perfeäly Illuminated. The scenes therefore need to be read, and at first the very alphabet was wanting. The problem was of far greater obscurity than in the case of what M. Foucher terms the magnificent illustraied bible constituted by the sculptors of the cathedral of Chartres. The texts of the Buddhist religion have only gradually been made known : those events in the life which wen specially marked out for illustration — the twelve acts of Buddha and soforth — had not been separated out; the Jätaka book, recording the tales of previous births, was not at first available. The names of those scholars to whom we are indebted for the first tentatives at decipherment, stichas the inspired, if not impeccable, archxologist, General Sir Alexander Cunningham, Prof. Grünwedel of the Berlin Ethnographical Museum, Dr. Serge d’Oldenburg, Perpetual Secretary of the Imperial PREFACE IX ^Academy of St. Petersburg, and others will be found recurring in M. Fou- cher’s pages. But undoubtedly the matter has in M. Foucher's own work made a long stepforward : the reader will remark not only the artistic insight which gives so much ease and certainty to the identifications in this volume, but also the emergence of principles fitted to serve as a guide for future discovery and criticism in this field of study, ln a word, we see taking shape, not only an art, but also a Science of discovery and interpretation in regard to Buddhist, and by cmsequence to Indian, Illustration. kA history of Buddhist Art is a task for the future ; may we some day have the pleasure of welcoming a systematic treatise upon the subject from M- Foucher’s own pen. For the present we are only at the commencenient. Nothing guarantees usthat inits beginnings the Art shall be found on a level with the doctrine, or that it shall follow a parallel course, or again that it shall develope with a proportional rapidity. On the contrary, we see already that at Sdnchi and Barhut, after centuries of active speculation, it makes its appeal primarily to a community characteriztd by naive and simple piety. In the case of Christianity how many centuries of dogmatic strife precede the age of the primitives l Nevertheless the reader who turns from the essays on Barhut and Sdnchi to those dealing with the Great Miracle and with Boro-Budur — much clearer would be his impression, if he embraced in his view the mediseval and modern art of China, Japan, and Tibet — cannot fail to note the metaphysical conlemplation which has grown upon the decay of the older populär piety. Yet even here we have a warning as to the partial reversions which may result from the transplanting of religion to a less sophis- ticated society : since in the sculptures of Boro Budur we find again — in an atmosphere, it is true, of hypertropical softness — no small admixture of that frank pleasure in niere story-telling which is the special charm of Sdnchi and Barhut. London. June, 1914. F. W. Thomas. We are indebted for the use of photographs to the Secretary of State for India, Dr. J. Burgess, and Prof. A. A. Macdonell (England); to Prof. Ed. Chavannes, Mr. Henry H. Getty and M. V. Goloubew (France); to Prof. A. Grünwedel and Dr. A. von Le Coq. (Germany); to Mr. J H. (now Sir John) Marshall, Sir Aurel Stein and Mr. (now Prof.) J. Ph. Vogel (India); to Major Van Erp (Java) : — and for the loan of blocks to the Acaddmie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, the Socidtd Asiatique and MM. Esperandieu, Güimet, Hachette et C 1 *, E. Leroux (Paris), and to the Ecole franqaise d’Extr&me-Orient (Hanoi). ' In the body of the work and in the descriptions attached to the plates will be found indications in detail of what we owe tothis kind coöperation. We tender here our grateful thanks for help in the absence of which the majority of these.essays either would never have come into being or could not have been combined to form of a volume. Some faults of impression and minor errata will perhaps be judged excu- sable in an English book printed in France. P. S. — It should moreover be stated — in view of some few details which the reader himself may notice — that this volume, with exception of the index and tables, has been in print since June 1914. Through the enforced postponement of its appearance, the dedication to M. A. Barth has become (since April 15, 1916) unfortunately only a tribute to his memory. CONTENTS Pag*«* I. — The Beginnings of Buddhist Art . i II. — The Representations of « Jätakas » on the Bas- Reliefs of Barhut. 29 III. — The Eastern Gate of the SanchI Stupa .... 61 IV. — The Greek Origin of the Image of Buddha . . . m V. — The Tutelart Pair in Gaul and in India . . . 139 VI. — The Great Miracle at £ravasti.147 VII. — The Six-Tusked Elepiiant. 185 VIII. — Buddhist Art in Java. 205 IX. — The Buddhist Madonna.271 Index.293 ILLUSTRATIONS Häriti, the Buddhist Madonna : painting fromTurfan... frtmtispiece P*ge Plates I-IV. — Beginnings of Buddhist Art. 28 I. Buddhist symbols on ancient Indian coins. II. The three last Great Miracles : 1" at Sänchi ; 2 0 at Amaravati. III. The first Great Miracle : s i» in Gandhära \ 2 0 at Amaravati. IV. The four Great Miracles : i° in Gandhära ; 2 0 at Amaräviti ; 3 0 at Benares. Plates V-VI. — Jätakas at Barhut. 6° V. ln medallions. VI. On the rail-coping. Plates VII-X, — The Eastern Gate of the Sänchi Stupa. i io VII, j. General view taken from the East. 2. Back-view of Lintels of Eastern Gate. VIII, 1. Eastern Gate (Jront vievu). 2. Divine guardian at entrance. Interior face of left jamb. IX, 1. The Conversion of the Kä^yapas. Interior face of left jamb. 2. The Return to Kapilavastu. Interior face of right jamb. X, 1. The Vocation, or Great Departure. Front view of middle lintel. 2. A Procession to the Bodhi-Tree. Front view of lower lintel. XIV ILLUSTRATIONS r«g» Plates XI-XVI. — Greek Ürigin of the Buddha Type . . 138 XI, 1. Buddhas in the Lahore Museum. 2. Buddha in the Guides’ Mess, Marddn. XII, 1. The Village of Shdhbdz-Garhi. 2. The Ruins of Takht-i-Bahai. XIII, 1. The Village of Sahri-Bahlol. 2. Excavations near Sahri-Bahlol. XIV, i. Shdh-ji-ki-Dherl (Kanishka Stupa). 2. Indo Greek and Indo-Scythic Coins. XV, 1. The Relic-casket of Kanishka. 2. The Bodhisattva Type. XVI, 1. Types of Bodhisattva, Buddha and monk. 2. Grasco-Christian Christ and Graeco-Buddhist Buddha. Plates XVII-XVIII. — The Tutelary Pair. 146 XVII. In Gaul. XVIII. In Gandhdra. Plates XIX-XXVIII. — The Great Miracle of Qrävasti . 184 XIX. At Benares. XX. At Ajantd. XXI, 1. At Ajantd : after a wall-painting. 2 . In China : in the Ta-t’ong-fu Caves. XXII. On the Boro-Budur, Java. XXIII, 1. In Magadha. 2 . In the Konkan. XXIV. In Gandhdra. XXV. In Gandhdra. XXVI. In Gandhdra. XXVII. In Gandhdra. XXVIII, t. In Gandhdra. 2 . At Barhut. Plates XXIX-XXX. — The Six-tusked Elephant .... 204 XXIX, 1. At Barhut. 2. AtAmardvati. XXX, 1. In Gandhdra. 2. At Ajantd. ILLUSTRATIONS Plates XXXI-XLIV. XXXI, i. Boro- 2 . XXXII. XXXIII, x. 2 . XXXIV, I. 2 XXXV, X. 2 . XXXVI, I 2 . XXXVII, I 2 . XXXVIII, I. 2 . XXXIX. XL, I. XV Page — Buddhist arch^ology in Java . . 270 Budur : General view (from the north-west). — First Gallery (part of west fahnde'). — Section and plan. — Silhouette. — Staircase (north side'). — Story of Sudhana, no 3 : Incantation against the Näga (central portion ). — Story of Sudhana, no. 11: Manoharä’sflight. Ahove : The Bodhisattva’s fareweil to the gods. — Story of Sudhana,no. i2:ThePrince’sreturn. Ahove : The Bodhisattva’s descent upon earth. — Story of Sudhana, no. 16 : At the fountain (right-hand portion ). — Story of Mändhätar, no. 12 : The rain of garments. Ahove : The Bodhisattva chooses his bride. — Story of king £ibi, the Dove and the Hawk. Ahove : The first of the Bodhisattva’s four promenades. — Story of Rudräyana, no. 6 : Presentation ot the cuirass (left-hand portion ). — Story of Rudräyana, no. 9 : Mahäkätyä- yana’s visit. Ahove : The Bodhisattva with his first Brahman teacher. — Story of Rudräyana, no. 10 : The nun (Jailä’s sermon (left-hand portion). — Story of Rudräyana, no. 11: Queen Candra- prabhä’s ordination (central portion). — Story of Rudräyana, fragments of nos. 12, 13 and 14. — Story of Rudräyana, no. 16 : After the parricide. Ahove : The ascetic Bodhisattva declines the aid ofthe gods. — Story of Rudräyana, no. 19 : The rain of jeweis (left-hand portion). 2 XVI ILLUSTRATIONS XLI, i. 2. XLII, i. 2 . XLIII, i. 2 . XL 1 V. Plates XLV-L. XLV. XLVI. XLVII. XLVIII, i. 2 XLIX. Page Boro-Budur : Story of the pair of Kinnaras ( central portion of the second scene). — Story of Maitrakanyaka, no. i : The purse- offering (central portion). — Story of Maitrakanyaka, no. 2: The mother’s supplication ( left-hand portion). — Story of Maitrakanyaka, no. 7 : In the Inferno city (right-bandportion). The unfinished statue of Buddha. Under the central cupola, Boro-Budur. Trailokya-vijaya. Bronze in the Batavia Museum.. The Goddess Cunda between two Bodhisattvas. On the south Western wall of the Chandi Mendut , — The Buddhist Madonna.292 After a wall-painting from Domoko (Chinese Turkestan). 1. Side view hefore removal ; 2 .As set up in British Museum. Suckling Madonna : 1. Romanesque; 2. Coptic. Indo-Greek images of Hariti. Häriti and her partner in Gandhära. Häriti in Java. Japanese images of Ki-si-mo-jin. Chinese images of Kuan-Yin. .V. B. — A detailed description of euch plate will be found either in the body of the work or on the page de garde opposite the plate. The Beginnings of Buddhist Art.C) Buddhism is a historical fact; only it hasnot yet been completely incorporated into history '• sooner or later that will be achieved. Meanwhile its initial period remains, we must confess, passably obscure. To add toourdifficulty, the little that we think we know of the social and political state of India in the times of its birth has been learned almost entirely through its medium : thus the frame is no better defined than the picture. But the task, arduous though it may be,is not impossible. Thefifth Century B. C. is not so remote a period that it must always elude archaeo- logical research; the interval between the death of Buddha and the first information transmitted to us concerning him is not so considerable that we cannot flatter oursel- ves with the idea of discerning across it the veritable phy- sionomy of the work, if not — in conformity with the oious, but too tardy wish of later generations — the actual features » of the worker. This hope is still more nfident, and the ambition less audacious, when it is a qc ’stion ofthe beginnings of Buddhist art. The appearance of he latter is a relatively late phenomenon, since it pre- supposes not only the development of the community of monks, but also a certain Organization of worship on the part of the laity. If among the productions of this art the sculptures are almost the sole survivors, we have at least preserved to us, notably in the labelled bas-reliefs (i) Journal Asial'tque, jan.-Feb. 1911. 1 2 THE BEGINNINGS OF BUDDHIST ART of Barhut, documents of the very highest rank. Cert- ainly the stones are by no means loquacious : but they atone for their silence by the unalterableness of a testimony which could not be suspected of rifacimento or interpo- lation. Thanks to their marvellous grain, they are to-day as they were when they left the hands of the image-makers (rüpakdraka) two thousand years ago; and upon this immutable foundation we can construct inferences more rigo- rous than upon the moving sand of the texts. In the ever restless and changing play of the doctrines we are never quite certain that the logical sequence of the ideas is exact- ly parallel to the historical succession of the facts. On the other side, the routine character of all manual technique will allow us to detect with certainty, in the still existing monuments, the material traces of the procedures which must have been usual earlier : inversely, and by a kind of proof backwards, the correctness of these postulates will be verified in that they alone will be found to render a satisfactory account of the often uncouth character of that which has been preserved to us. All these reasons seem to us to justify the task which we have undertaken. In the assault delivered from various quarters upon the origins of Buddhism we believe even that the attempt to go back to the very beginning of its art is, among all the methods of approach, that which has for the moment the most chances of success. I None, indeed, ofthe monuments known at the present time, building or sculpture, takes us further back than the Maurya dynasty. Does that mean that art was created entire THE BEGINNINGS OF BUDDHIST ART 3 in India towards theyear 250 before our era, by a decree of the Emperor A^oka? Of course it would be absurd to believe this. From the Vedic times Indian civilization had at its disposal the Services not only of the carpenter, the wheel-wright and the blacksmith, of the potter, the wea- ver and other fabricators of objects of prime necessity, but also of those whom we call art-workers, painters, gold- smiths, carvers in wood or ivory. Ifthe texts were not there to teil us this in words, the evidence of the sole surviving monuments would be sufficient to establish it. Fergus- son has proved once for all that the oldest constructions in stone, by the servile manner in which they copy the fra- ming and joining of timber work, testify to the previous existence of wooden buildings. On the other hand — as we know from a reliable source by means of an explicit inscription — it was the ivory-workers of Vidi^a who car- ved, in the immediate vicinity of their town, one of the monumental gates of Sänchi. Besides, it is obvious that the finished and well polished bas-reliefs, which for us are the first in date, represent not by any means the first attempts of beginners, but the work of sculptors long familiär with their business and changing their material, but not their technique. .The whole transformation which was accom- PÜshed duringthethird Century before our era is limited to the Substitution, in religious and royal foundations, of the reign of stone for that of wood. Unfortunately, there are no worse conditions, climatic and historical, for the preser- vation of monuments than those of India. All that was of wood was condemned beforehand to fall into dust; all, or nearly all, that was of stone and that the climate might have spared has been destroyed by the vandalism of man. Thus is explained why the most ancient remains of Buddhist art are at once so late and so rare. If we leave aside 4 THE BEG1NNINGS OF BUDDHIST ART the great monolithic pillars dear to A^oka, as well as the caves excavated for the benefit of all the religious sects in every place where the geological formation ofthe rocks lent itself thereto, we find on the ground level, and pend- ing more systematic excavations, scarcely anything to mention, except the debris of the balustrades of Bodh- Gayä and of Barhut, and the four gates of Sänchi. The mention of the kings Brahmamitra and Indramitra, inscribed on the first, on the second that of the dynasty of the Qungas, and on one of the last that of the reign of Sätakani suffice to date them generally, but with certainty, as belonging to the second, or first, Century before our era. It is doubtless to the same epoch,ifwe may judge by the style, that we must refer the oldest fragments of the balustrades exhumed both at Amarävati and at Mathurä. If to these few stray remnants of sculptures we add the remains of the most archaic paintings of Ajantä, we shall very soon have finished compiling the catalogue of what may be styled —in Opposition to the later school, of the north-west frontier, much more penetrated by foreign influences — the native school of Central India. Let us go straight to the most striking feature of this old Buddhist school. Although well known to specialists, it will not fail to surprise uninformed readers. When we find the ancient stone-carvers of India in full activity, we observe that they are very industriously engaged in carrying out the stränge undertakingof representing the life of Buddha without Buddha. We have here a fact which, improbable as it may seem, Cunningham longagodemonstrated.lt is established on the written testimony of the artists them- selves. Those of Barhut inform us by an inscription, that such and such a person on his knees before a throne « is rendering homage to the Blessed One ». Now, without THE BEGINNINGS OF BUDDHIST ART 5 exception, the throne is vacant; at the most, there is a symbol indicating the invisible presence of Buddha (‘). The latest researches have only opened our eyes to the extent of the field of application of this constant rule; it holds good for the years which preceded as also for those which followed the Sambodhi, for the youth as also for the old age of the Master. The facade of the middle lintel of the eastern gate of Sänchi illustrates his departure on horseback from his house : the embroidered rüg which serves as a saddle for his steed is empty (*). A medallion of Bodh-Gayä represents his first meditation : empty again is the seat before which the traditional ploughman is dri— ving his plough ( 1 2 3 ). Some panels of Amaravati show us his birth and presentation to the sage Asita; only his footprints — a direct ideographic transcription of the for- mula which was in use in India to designate respectfully a « person » — mark the swaddling clothes on which in one place the gods, in another the old rishi are reputed to have received him into their arms ( 4 5 ). These selected examples suffice to demonstrate that the ancient Indian sculptors abstained absolutely from representing either Bodhi- sattva or Buddha in the course of his last earthy exis- tence^). Such is the abnormal, but indisputable fact of which every history of Buddhist art will have at the outset to render account. (1) A. Cünningham, Stupa of Barhut, pl. XIII-XVII. (2) See below, pp. 75 and 105; cf. pl. X, 1. (3) Art greco-bouddhique du Gandhära, fig. 177 and P- 345 - (4) See on the staircase of the British Museum, n os 44 and 48, or Fer- gosson, Tree and Serpent Worsbip, pl. XCI, 4, and LXI, 2. (5) Let us add, in Order to be quite correct, « at least under his human form »; for we know that a bas-relief at Barhut represents the Blessed One descending into the bosom of his mother in the form of an elephant (cf. below, p. 20). 6 THE BEGINNINGS OF BUDDHIST ART As far as we know, no perfectly satisfactory explanation of this fact has until now been given. First of all we tried to dispose of the matter more or less by the supposition, as evasive as gratuitous, that the ancient school had either not desired or had not been able to figure the Blessed One; neither of thesetwo reasons appears to us to have the least value in proof. Shall we speak of incapacity ? Assuredly, one can see that the concrete realization of the image ofthe « perfect Buddha » was not an easy task : and the difficulty could not but increase with the years, in proportion as the time ofthe Master grew more distant and his features faded more and moreinto themists of the past. Nevertheless, we must not form too poor an opinion of the talent of the old image-makers, and the argument becomes moreover quite worthless, when one attempts to apply it to the youth of Buddha. What was he, in fact, up to the time of his flight from his native town, but a ff royal heir apparent »? Now the type of räja-kutnära, or crown-prince, is common on the gates of Sanchi, as also on the balustrade of Barhut ('); what material hindrance was there to their making use of it to represent the Bodhisattva ? It is clear that they could have done so, and yet they carefully abstainedfrom doing so. Shall we fall back, then, upon the other branch of the dilemma and say that they did not dare ? Assuredly the gravest members of the order must long have held to the letter the Stern saying that « the master gone, the law remains Q »; and we are quite willing to believe that the law alone was of import for them. The reverend Näga- sena still teaches king Menander that henceforth the (1) See Cunningham, Stupa of Barhut, pl. XXV, 4 ( 'Mügapakkha-jätaka n° 538 : cf. infra, p. 56 and pl. V, 6) and p. vi (mention of the Vigvaniara- jätaka ) ; north gate of Slnchi, lower lintel (Vi^vantara), etc. (2) Mahdparinibbäna-sutta, VI, 1. THE BEGINNINGS OF BUDDHIST ART 7 Blessed One is no longer visible except in the form of the dharmakäyaQ ), of the « body of the doctrine » ; but of any express prohibition of images we have in the texts no knowledge. Since when, moreover, and in what country does populär devotion trouble itself about the dogmatic scruples of the doctors ? Certainly it was not so in ancient India: for otherwise we could not at all understand the enthusiasm with which the valley of the Ganges and the rest of the peninsula welcomed the Indo-Greek type of Buddha. From Mathurä to Bodh-Gayä, and from (^rävasti to Amarävati, we see itinstalled in triumph on the circum- ference of the stupas as in the interior of the temples. So rapid a conquest is a suffident proof that the objections of consdence, if any such existed, were far from being insur- mountable. But, it will be said, if it is true that the ancient Indian image-makers asked for nothing better than to represent the Blessed One, and that, on the other hand, they were capable of it, why then have they so carefully abstained ? Tothisweseebutone reply, in appearance, wernustconfess, simple-minded enough, but one which, in India, is still sufficient for all: « If they did not do it, it was because it was not the custom to do it ». And, no doubt, it would be easy to retort: « But you confine yourself to putting off the question; if it does not arise with regard to the sculptors whose works we possess, it still holds good entirely with regard to their predecessors... » — Certainly, and far from contradicting, that is just the point at which we wished to arrive. We hold that this monstrous abstention, such as we observe on the monuments of Barhut and Sänchi, remains perfectly incomprehensible, unless we (1) Milindapanha, ed. Trenckner, p. 73; trans. Rhys Davids, p. 113. 8 THE BEGINNINGS OF BUDDHIST ART enquire into the traditional habits which it supposes and which, for that very reason, it is capable of revealing to us. Like certain anomalies in animal species, it can only be explained as an inheritance from a nearly obsolete past, which this survival helps us to reconstitute. In other words, it is vain for us to seek a solution of the problem in the few relativelv late specimens at present known to us; it is to the anterior history, to what is still the prehistoric period of Buddhist art that we must go to discover it. To such a typical case of artistic tera- tology it is the evolutionist method of embryology that it is proper to apply. II To begin, we have the best reasons for thinking that the habit of adoring human images, and even the art of fabricating them, were still less general in thelndiaofthe Brahmans before Alexander than in the Gaul of the Druids before the time of Caesar. Certainly this absence of idola- try properly so-called did not in any way exclude the exis- tence of more rudimentary forms of fetichism (') : never- theless, the fact remains that Buddhism did not develope, like Christianity, in a world long infected by the worship of images and prompt to contaminate it in its turn. Not (i) We allude to the golden purusha which formed a part of the altar of sacrifice ( Qat.-Brahm., 7, 4, 1., 15) and to the effigy kritya of the magic rites ( Atb. Veda, X, 1), etc. — For what is to be understood by the Gallic simulacra of Caesar (Bell. Gail., VI, 4), see the article of M. S. Reinach on L’art plastique en Gaule et le druidisme (Revue Celtique, t. XIII, 1892, pp. 190 sqq..), where are cited also corresponding testimonies of Hero- dotus (I, 131) and Tacitus (Germ., IX) as to the non-existence of idolatry among the Persians and the Germans. THE BEGINNINGS OF BUDDHIST ART 9 only did the first Century already know symbolical or alle- gorical representations of Christ; but from the second Century we meet with his portrait on the paintings of the catacombs (‘). When that of Buddha makes its appearance inlndia, the religion whichhe had founded was already four hundred years old : even so it had required the contact of the civilisation, and the influence of the art, of Hellenism. On the other hand, Buddhism was notborn, like Islam, in an environment beforehand and deliberately hostile to idolatry. We do not find that the Vedic texts breathe a word about it, either for or against : and their silence is explained precisely by the fact that the idea of it had not even presented itself to the Indian mind. As soon as the time for it shall have come, the grammarians will not fail to mention in the employment of the learned language the mode ofdesignatingthe new fact of the Brahmanic idols ( ä ). Likewise, when the question of the images of the Master presents itself to the faithful Buddhists, their writings will supply explicitly the opportune Solutions; and if these suc- cessive Solutions are, moreover, contradictory, it is simply that in the interval the needs of the religious conscience have changed at the same time as the conditions of artistic pro- duction. But, as far as concerns the most ancient period with which we have to deal, investigations into the litera- ture have remained from an iconographical point of view as sterile as the researches on the spot. For the moment the history of religious art in India, previous to Buddhism, is, (1) M. Besnier, Les Catacombes de Rom, Paris, 1909, PP- 204, 208, 223- (2) Cf. Scholia to Pdnini, V, 3, 99 - excellently discussed by Prof. Sten Konow in his interesting Note on the use of imaqes in ancient India (Ind. Ant., 1909) : but they have no value as proof for the pre-Mauryan epoch with which we are here concerned. IO THE BEGINNINGS OF BUDDHIST ART whether it must remain so or not, philologically a blank page, archaeologically an empty show-case. That in Buddhism, as in all religions, art is at first onlya simple manifestation of worship, every one will will- ingly admit. The only question is to know what branch of Buddhist worship has supplied this special excrescence with an opportunity for its production. It is evidently not in the periodical reunions of the monks that we shall find the smallest decorative pretext. The veneration shown to the mortal remains ofthe Blessed One explains the leading role of the funeral tumulus in Buddhist architecture. It will not escape us that it is still the same veneration which, thus advantaged, has offered in the obligatory surroundings of those reliquary monuments the natural Support to the sculptures, the sole destination of which for a long time was to decorate the balustrades of the stüpas. We might even suspect a mark of its influence in the almost entirely bio- graphical character that this decoration has assumed, just as, by the rite of circumambulation, it has fixed the direc- tion in which the scenes must succeed one another and be read. But, beyond this general Orientation, we discover at the basis of this kind of devotion nothing that could have determined the mode of compositon of the bas-reliefs. There remains the third and last ancientform of Buddhist worship, that which Buddha himself is supposed to have taught on his death bed to his well-loved disciple, « There are four places.O Änanda, which an honorable worshipper should visit with religious emotion. What are these four?«... They are, as we know, those where the Predestined One for the first time received illumination and preached and those where for the last time he wasborn and diedQ. Now (i) Mahäparinibbana-suta, V, 16-22. THE BEGINNINGS OF BUDDHIST AM ii just in this devout practice of the four great pilgrimages resides any hope which we have of at last coming upon the long-sought point of departure. In Order that we may grasp atoncethe germ and the directing principle of Buddhist art, it is necessary and sufficient to admit that the Indian pil- grims were pleased to bring back from these four holy places a small material Souvenir of what they had there seen. We can scarcely believe that the reader will refuse to grant us this small postulate. Can he be so ignorant of the outer world that he does not know the universal em- pire of the mania, innocent in itself, for Souvenirs of tra- vels? The innumerable manufacturers and shopkeepers who everywhere live by it would quickly demonstrate it to him. Has he never in the course of his migrations, whatever may have been the object or the cause of them, bought curios, collected photographs, or sent away pic- ture post-cards? These are only the latest modes and a profane extension of an immemorial and sacred custom. lf he doubts this, let him lean, for example, over one of the cases at the Cluny Museum (*) which contain the emblematic metal insignia of all the great pilgrimages of the Middle Ages, as they have been fished out of the 'Seine in Paris. Mediaeval India has also left by hun- dreds evidences of this custom. Most frequently they are simple clay balls, moulded or stamped with a seal, and without doubt within the reach of all pockets, which served at the same time as memento and as ex-voto. They are to be picked up nowadays on all Buddhist sites, even (i) Unless it is more convenient for him to try the same experiment at the British Museum, where a case in the Mediaeval Room also contains a Collection of these signacula. 12 THE BEGINNINGS OF BUDDHIST ART in the peninsula of Malacca and in Annam (*). Do we compromise ourselves very much by conjecturing that these sacred emblems are in Buddhism the remains of a tradition which goes back to the four great primitive pil- grimages? The worst that could result from it would be that Buddhist art must have owed its origin to the satis- faction of a need everywhere and ahvays experienced, and, we may almost say, of one of the religious instincts of humanity. It would be difficult to imagine a theory more humble and more prosaic : it is in our opinion only the more probable for that, nor do we see what other we can substitute, if, at least, we are unwilling to attribute to that art any but a rational origin. In fact, this point once gained, all the rest follows. Nothing is more easy than to guess what must have been the Souvenirs brought back by the pilgrims from the four great holy places. To take the modern example most familiär to the French reader, what is represented by theimages or medals offered for sale and bought at Lourdes ? First and foremost, the miraculous grotto. What must have been represented on stuffs, on clay, wood, ivory, or metal by the first objects of piety manufactured at Kapilavastu, at Bodh-Gayä, at Benares, or at Ku^inagara? Evidently the characteristic point towards which, atthe approach of each of these four towns, populär devotion was directed. Now we know these points already from the picturesque expres- sions of the texts. What was first visited at Kuqnagara was the site, very soon and quite appropriately marked by (i) For specimens from India, see Ccnningham, Mahäbodhi, pl. XXIV; J. R. A. S., 1900, p. 432, etc.; from Burmah, Archseol. Survey of India, Annual Feport, 1905-1906, pl. LIII; from Malacca, Bull.de la Commission Archeologique de l’Indo-Chine, 1909, p. 232 ; from Annam, B. E. F. E.-O., 1901, p. 25, etc. THE BEGINNINGS OF BUDDHIST ART 13 a stüpa ('), of the last death of the Master. In the same way, the essential miracle of Benares having taken place at the « Mriga-däva », the Gazelle-park, it was inevitable that its consecrated description as « putting the wheel of the law in motion » should be translated in concrete terms by a wheel, usually accompanied by two gazelles. What was contemplated at Bodh-Gaya, on the other hand, was the evergreen fig-tree, at the foot of which the Blessed One had sat to attain omniscience. Finally, what would be worshipped at Kapilavastu ? Here the answer is less cer- tain : undoubtedly the great local attraction consisted in the recollection of the nativity of Buddha; but, without mentioning his paternal home,themost ardent zeal might hesitate between the place of his material birth and that of his spiritual renaissance, between the park of Lumbini, where he issued from the right side of his mother, and the no less famous gate, through which he escaped from the miserable pleasures of the world. Whatever might in this case be the difficulty of choice, with regard to the three other sites at least no hesitation was possible. A tree, a wheel, a stüpa, these suffice to recall to our memory the spectacle of those holy places, or even, by a constant asso- ciation of ideas and images, to evoke the miracles of which they had been the theatre. Again, these things could be indicated as summarily as one could wish : if human weakness cannot dispense with the material sign, imagi- nation makes up for the poverty of artistic means. (1) « A Stüpa of Agoka », says Hiuan-tsang; that is, of archaic form ; cf. also Fa-hian (Bea.l, Records, I, p. ui, and II, p. 32). 14 THE BEGINNINGS OF BUDDHIST ART III Such is the sole part which hypothesis plays in our theory. The whole subsequent development of Buddhist art flows logically from these premises; and henceforth there are none ofthe still surviving documents which do not successively corroborate the various stages ol its evolution. The oldest monuments which have come down to us from Indian antiquity areafewrectangular coinsof copper orsilver. Now it is very remarkable that, among the Symbols with which they are punch-marked, the tree, the wheel and the stüpa play a considerable, and indeed,on many of them,a predo- minant part (‘). Thanks to the chance of their discovery, the existence of the signacula, which we imagined to have been made for the use of pilgrims, ceases to be, for as far back as we can go, a pure conjecture (seepl. I, B, C,D). Better still, we can clearly discern in the infantile simplicity of these emblems the style of the most ancient manifesta- tions of the religious art of the Buddhists. They are, properly speaking, less images than hieroglyphics endowed for the initiated with a conventional value : and, at the same time, we succeed in explaining to ourselves what we have already more than once had occasion to note, that is, the abstract and quasi algebraical character of this art at its commence- ment Q. Moreover, we easily conceive that, in conse- quence of being conveyed beyond the great centres of pil- (1) To quoteonly the latest study, cf. D. B. Spooner, Anew find of punch- marked coins, in Arch. Survey of India,Annual Report 1905-1906, 1909, p. 150. According to the excellent analysis which Dr. Spooner has given of this discovery, out of 61 coins 22 bear all three symbols at once and 22 others as- sociate the two last together. (2) Cf. for instance, Artgreco-houddhique du Gandhära , p. 608. THE BEGINNINGS OF BUDDHIST ART 15 grimage, artistic emblems of this sort may have seen their initial signification modified. They came, by degrees, to be regarded less as mementos of sacred spots than as figurative representations of miracles, the memory ofwhich was connected with those places. In other words, in pro- portion as they were propagated further and further from their place of origin, their topographical and local character diminished more and more, to the advantage of their sym- bolical and universal value, until they ended by becoming the common patrimony of the image-makers and being fabricatedeverywherewithoutdistinction where a Buddhist donor ordered them. It is just this state of diffusion and subsequent generalisation that is proved to us even in the IV Ul Century by the banality and dispersion of the so-cal- led « Buddhist » coins. But we must hasten, in this rapid sketch, to come to the monuments whose Buddhist character can no longer be disputed. We know what im pulse was towards the middle of the third Century given by the imperial zeal of Acoka to thereligious foundations of the sect. Itis, therefore, only the more curious to observe how, even a hundred years after him, the schoolof Central India continues to follow faith- fullyin thebeaten trackof the past. From this point ofview, the four gates of Sänchi,which we have had the good fortune toretain almost intact, may furnish a fairly safe criterion of the degree of persistence of the ancient usages. Now Fer- gusson long ago remarked there the extreme frequency of what he called « the worship » of the tree, the stüpa and the wheel. According tostatistics hardly open tosuspicion, sincethey were drawnup in Support of theories quite different from ours, the first emblem is repeated no less than 67 times, the second 32 times ; and if the last does not reappear more that 6 times, this number suffices, never- i6 THE BEGINNINGS OF BUDDHIST ART theless, to assure it the third place in the Order of impor- tance of the subjects( l ). We havenot, of course, to follow Fergusson in the stränge anthropological speculations which he has engrafted on to these observations. All that we should be tempted at first to read in his table would be the preponderance of the miracle of the Sambodhi, or of the Parinirvdna, over that of the Dharmacakra-pravartana. In reality the larger number of the first two symbols de- pends upon another cause. The artists proceeded to apply to the Buddhas of the past the formuias which had at first served for the Buddha of our age. People were pleased to level all the seven by representing them at one time by their funeral tumulus, at another, and much more frequently, by their empty throne under their Tree of Knowledge ( J ) : the wheel alone had re- mained the special apanage of our £äkya-muni, and con- sequently was repeated only at rarer intervals. But these are only subsidiary details; taking these figures all together, their imposing total testifies loudly enough to the cons- tant repetition in traditional form of what we know, from the evidence of the coins, to have been the first attempts at Buddhist art. Being forced to cover the relatively extensive surfaces placed at their disposal, the sculptors of (i) Cf. Fergusson, Tree and Serpent-Worship , 2 nd edition, 1873, pp. 105 and 242. Here is the table, in which he has included the data of the sole gate of one of the small neighbouring stüpas : Tree, Stüpa, Wheel. Great Stüpa. South Gate 16 5 1 North Gate 19 8 2 East Gate 17 9 1 West Gate 15 IO 2 Small Stüpa. Only Gate 9 6 4 (2) Seebelow, Eastern Gate of Sänchi, pp. 72 and 104. The decisive reason for the predominance of the inspired compositions of the type of the Sambodhi over all the others will be given a little further on, p. 19. THE BEGINNINGS OE BUDDHIST ART *7 Sänchi evidently commenced by re-editing profusely, right in the middle of the second Century before our era, the summary and hieroglyphic compositions which they had inherited from their direct predecessors, the makers of religious objects in the fifth Century (see pl. II). IV This is a first and certainly very important, but purely material, verification of our hypothesis. There are proofs more subtle than the proof of statistics, which open up deeper views of the development of the ancient Buddhist school. The years have passed, technical skill has increased, the iconographic types of gods and genii have been formed, the gift of observation and a sense of the picturesque have awakenedin it :but it remains nevertheless, as regards the Capital point of the figuration of Buddha, the docile cap- tive of custom. Around the old themes of the Studios, it embroiders, it is true, some variations : it embellishes the siüpas, surrounds the wheels with wreaths, or, care- less of the anachronism, gives beforehand to the tree of the Sambodhi the curious stone surround which. more than two and a half centuries after the miracle, it owed to the piety of A$oka (*); but for all that it does not go beyond the ancient formulas. Weary of eternally repeating the sacred miracles, does it risk treating some still un- published episode?The idea of taking advantage of this, in Order to break free from routine, never occurs to it. It can- notbut know that its business is no longer to supply pil- grims with a memento of what they had seen with their own eyes in the course of their visits to the sacred places; (i)See below, Eastern Gateof Sänchi, p. 102. 18 THE BEGINNINGS OF BUDDHIST ART it is fully conscious that what it has now to do is to illus- trate on a permanent monument the biography of Buddha; but it appears hardly to grasp clearly the fact that for this new purpose the old procedures, formerly perfectly appro- priate to their object, are no longer suitable. Evidently, it was too late to rebel and to shake off the yoke of an artistic tradition which had ere long been strengthened by religious legends; at least it is about this same time that the texts, until then silent on the question, suddenly decide to pro- claim — with an excessive precipitation to be contradicted soon after by posterity — the previous incapacity of the artists to portray during his lifetime the ineffable linea- ments of the Blessed One ('). And how otherwise, in fact, explain the persistent absence of his image, whilst so many of the populär divinitics were paraded on the pillars of Barhut and Sanchi ? Henceforward there is only one way, in conformity with the living reality, of conceiving the study of the ancient Indian school. Its history is that of a struggle, inore or less surreptitious, between the two tendencies which divided it against itself, an irrepressible desire for new scenes and a superstitious respect for its precedents. On the one hand, it experiences a growing need for the form of Buddha to serve as a centre or pivot for the scenes of his life ; and on the other hand, it accepts as an axiom that, in order to represent the Blessed One, it suffices to do what until then had alwaysbeen done,that is, to evoke him by the sight of one of histhree speaking emblems. Watch it at work. The tumulus of the Parinirväna, the ultimate end of the career of the Master, was ipso facto beside the point, when it was a question of representing some incident in that career. The (i) Divyävadana, p. 547. THE BEGINNIN GS OF BUDDHIST ART 19 symbol of the wheel, specialized in the representation of the « First Preaching », could scarcely be employed again, except on the occasion of the similar miracle wrought at Qrävasti for the greater confusion of the rival sects (*). There remained for ordinary employment in miracles of the second rank the heraldic emblem already utilized for the Sambodhi. And, in fact, we can well see how the Studios ol Central India resign themselves once for all to this proce- dure and accommodate themselves more or less success- fully thereto. All the same, they cannot resist slipping in here and there a few variants, or even trying on occasions some different course. It is under an empty throne, sur- mounted by a tree, that at Barhut Buddha receives the visit of the n&ga Eläpatra; when he preaches in the heaven of the Thirty-three Gods, the motif is in addition graced with a parasol; and this latter, in its turn, takes the place of the tree on the occasion of the visit of Indra or Ajäta- ?atru. At times the throne by itself does the work. In two cases, on the eastern gate of Sänchi, the school even ventures so far as to avail itself solely of the « promenade », or cankrama, of the Master in order to suggest his pre- sence Q. But the boldness of its innovations goes no further, and we very quickly reach the limits of its auda- city. We have indeed sketched them above (pp. 4-5), and it would have been superfluous to return to the matter, did we not now believe that we have divined the raison d’etre, and actually the manner of production, of the stränge ano- malies which at the beginning of this study we had to confine ourselves to stating. We have, likewise, explained above how — and now we (1) See below, Essay VI. (2) Cf. Cunningham, Stupa of Barhui, pl. XIV, 3; XVI, 3; XVII, 1; XXVIII, 4 etc., and below, Easitrn Gatt of Sänchi , pp. 93 and 100. 20 THE REGINNINGS OF BUDDHIST ART understand why — the artists came into collision with the impassable barrier of ancient usages, when they had to represent the form of the Predestined One in the course of the first twenty-nine years of his life, at the time when his princely surroundings still hid under a mundane cloak the Buddha about to appear. In truth, we were not able as yet (p. 13) to determine exactly, by the aid of the texts, which episode of his youth the faithful had cho- sen as the principal object of commemoration, nor in what manner the old image-makers must have set to work to commemorate it. It is curious to note that the sculptors of the second Century shared our perplexities in this regard. Those of Barhut adopted the precise moment when the Bodhisattva descended into the bosom of his mother, when, at least, the latter dreamed that he descended there in the form of a little elephant (‘). Those of Sänchi do not represent the Conception, save incidentally; on the other hand, they complacently detail all the circum- stances of the prince’s entry into religion, that is, of his flight on horseback from his native town : they portray the gate of the town and several times the horse, the groom and the Gods : they leave to beunderstood only the hero of this Hegira ( 1 2 ). As to those of Amarävati, on the stelle where they have set one above another the four grand miracles, they employ indifferentlv, in Order to fill the panel reserved for Kapilavastu, — side by side with the tree of Bodh-Gayä, the wheel of Benares and the stüpa of Ku^inagara (see pl. II, 2) — now the same « great abandonment of home », where we see nothing but the horse passing under the gateway, now a « nati- (1) Conningham, Stupa of ßarbut, pl. XXVIII, 2. (2) See bdovt Eastern Gate of Sänchi, pl. 75 and p. 105 (cf. pl. X, 1). THE BEGINNINGS OF BUDDHIST ART 21 vity », where we see only the mother, to the exclusion of the new-born child ('). Which of these three cornpo- sitions (see pl. III) is the most archaic and best preserves for us the aspect of the « Souvenirs » which the pilgriras of the fifth Century were already able to purchase at Kapi- lavastu? This is a question which we at present find very difficult to answer. If, again, on this point we confide our- selve to the numismatic documents, they will persuade us that from the beginning a certain wavering manifested itself in the choice of the artists and the faithful. Most ot the Buddhist coins devote two abbreviations, instead of one, to the Nativity alone; at least, of the five usually associated Symbols, the lotus, the bull, the tree, the wheel and the tumulus, the two first must correspond simultaneously to the first of the four great miracles. Apparently, the lotus recalled those which had Sprung up spontaneously under the seven first steps of the Master, whilst the bull, almost alwavs flanked by his zodiacal emblem, incarn- ated the traditional date of the birth, the day of the full moon of the month Vaicäkha (see pl. I, A). On other occasions, but more rarely, the bull is replaced by an ele- phant, a plastic reminder of the Conception ( ä ). lt may be (1) Fergüsson, Tree and Serpent-Worslnp, pl. XCIII-XCVI 1 I. With regard to this we may note that much later stelte of Benares continue to groupe in the scheme of Kapilavastu the birth (with or without the conception, the seven steps, or the bath) and the great departure (see pl. IV, 3 A and cf. Anc. Man. lud., pl. 67-68, etc.). (2) Cf. the tables of D. B. Spooner, loc. eil., pp. 156-137. As for the above mentioned interpretations of the lotus and the bull, we, for our part, give them as simple conjectures. In any case, we may at this point observe that in later Buddhism the lotus has retained the symbolical signifi- cation of « miraculous birth », and that the bull appears again with its astro- nomical value on one of the best-known bas-reliefs of the Lahore Museum (cf. A. Grünwedel, Buddhistische Kunst in Indien, 2j ri; ’!•:.• i.-:--. iv- - Vi- " x ^2 -.ri- < (•■ , ■ rc "*-3 [ . üj <,IM' . - ^ i. . i r ' • a ^- : PLATE I Cf. pp. 14, 21 The elements ot this plate have been ob'.igingly sketch :d by M. Lemoine, Professor of Drawing at the Lyc6e at Quimper, from the following publications : A. Cunningham, Coins of Ancient Indio. (London, 1891); Vincent Smith, Catalogue of the Coins tu the Indian Museum, Calcuita (Oxford, 1906); D. B. Spooner, A new find of pttnch - marked coins (in Arch. Surv. of India, Annual Report , ipof 6 , pp. 150 sqq ) : cited respectively as C., Sm., Sp.. A. 1 (C , pl. XI, 2, 4); 2 (C., pl. I, 1, 5, 6); 3 (Sp., pl. LIV a 3, 14); 4 (S:n., pl. XIX, 13) : variants of the lotus, the Symbol of the miraculous birth of the Bodhisattva. The most characteristic form, with eight petals, is found on the coins of Erän (110. 1) : we give here in addition two fintastic, but current, forms — composed of three para- sols and ofthree « taurine» or nandi padas, framed(no i),or not (no. 3). in petals — and one quite stereotyped form (no. 4). 5 (C.,pl.I, 23 or pl. II, 8 etc.); 6 ( 5 m., pl. XX. 8); 7 (C., pl. II, 20); 8 (Sm., pl. XIX, 15, etc.) : variants of the « taurine » or nandi-pada symbol, denoting the zodiacal sign Taurus, the Bull (Skt. Tävurä), which, during the month of Yajfäkha, (April-May), presided over the Nativity of the Bodhisattva. The most simple form, and the star- ting-point of the development, is composed of a point surmounted by a crescent (no. 5). In the most elaborate form a vardhumäna, a trifiila, or even a triratna have in turn been detected : we do not per- ceive any reason why in becoming more complicated it should have chtnged its name and signification. 9 (C., pl. III, 2) ; 10 (C., pl. I, 26) ; 11 (C., pl. III, 3) ; 12 (C., pl. III, 2) : from the Buddhist point of view these four sacred animals typify respectively, the elephant the Conception, the bull the (dete of the) Nativity, the horse the Great Departure, and the lion, generally, the « lion among the £akyas » ((fidkya sitnha, that is £äkye-muni). B. 1 (C., pl. I, 1); 2 (Sm., pl. XIX, 11); 3 (C , pl. II, 7-8) ; 4 (Sm. pl. XX, 5) : variants of thetreeofthe Perfect Illumination ( Sambodhi ). Nos 1 and 2 present fairly well the form of the leaf of the afvatlha, or ficus religiosa ; the foot of the tree is always surrounded by a railing. C. 1 (Sm.,pl. XIX, i,etc.);2 (C.,pl.III, 13): variants of the Wheel of the Law ( 'Dharmacakra ) O.i no. 2 it is surrounded by small parasols. D 1 (C., pl. 1,4, 5); 2 (Sp., pl. LIV b. 1, 13); 3 (C , p!. II, 15); 4 (Sm., pl. XX, 11, 12) : variants of the slüpa, or tumulus, of the Parinirodna. Later the form of no. 1 was mistaken for a bow with its arrow; we seem to recognize in origin a slüpa crossed by the staff (p/ashti) of its parasol ( chattru ) : we need only compare the parasols which enter into the composition of the lotuses of nos. A. 2 and 3. BEGINNINGS OF BUDDHIST ART PL. I □□□ □ □□ □ DO BUDDHIST SYMBOLS ON ANGIENT INDIAN GOINS '■ft™.'*? WjTjU .a^ST*' I*' l K- *»/: vs >•• * '-♦-' fJ* 'I w s.:. c''... »283£ N: 1 ^; ,a‘VV- ["! KK» r SfiS >.-. -ft' *'i**S F--.>-«r'J< i£2ä *S^r*.Y, i ».’ 1 ■‘-•» r * S^i Hra iÜM-ttM i’jä ypgfä V^27 2ik; V'-S.^ Bl«: : >&y- 'ZOl&zL -«Mit 1 W PLATE 'ÖC f t«fci; The three Sänchi panels belong to the Western gate of the great stüpa, B to the front fa^ade, C and D to the rear : the photographs were kindly lent to us by Mr. J. H. Marshall. — The Stele of Ama- rävatl is reproduced from the photograph published by Fergusson, Trec and Serpent Worsbip, 2 ni ed., pl. XCIV. B. Miracle of the Perfect Illumination ( ’Sambodhi ), near to Gayä ; represented by a tree above a throne. Note the characteristic leaf of the tree of Qäkya-muni (cf. pl. I, B). C. Miracle of the First Preaching, or Putting in motion the Wheel of the Law ( Dharma-cakra-pravartana ), near to Benares; represented by a wheel above a throne. D. Miracle of the Final Extinction ( Parinirvdna ), near to Ku^ina- gara; represented by a stüpa. Worshippers — on the earth human and of both sexes, in the air divine — press round each of these symbolical representations. Those ' in the top corners of B i and D i have a human bust terminating in the stereotyped body of a bird. We are not long in remarking the constant contrast, both in the material objects and in the persons, be- tween the still heavy and clumsy style of Slnchl and that of Amarä - vati, almost too elegant and affected. What here concerns us most is that the fundamental identity of the subjects is not in the slightest degree compromised by these differences of treatment. BEGINNINGS of BUDDHIST ART m?53 D c: B I THE THREE 1" AT SÄNCHI last great miracles 2® AT AMARÄVATi **•*. 't v .* *r * > .•'•> V,-' >>* |*v '.V' ^&i 3 ; * v>*. U- '4' V?.“,' * J‘\ >. Tt ■ ;*d Tv-f. 5 - «BSS r^&jil PLATE III Cf. pp. 21, i 4 8 . i. The three Gandhära panels are reproduced : A 1 , from a photo- graph taken by the author in the Lahore Museum; A*, from a photograph in the Lahore Museum, copy kindly lent by Prof. A. A. Macdonell; A*, from a photograph by Mr. A. E. Caddy in the Calcutta Museum. — 2. The three Amarävati panels : A 1 , from a photograph taken by the author in the Madras Museum (Cf. Burgess, Buddhist Stüpa of lAmardvatt, pl. XXVIII, i); A*, from Fergusson's photograph, Treeattd Serpent Worship, pl. LXV, 3 ; A*, from the same source, pl. XCVI, 3. The locality of the scene is in all cases Kapilavastu. We shall not here insist further on the differences of type, costume, furniture and ornamentation. A 4 . The Conception ( Garbha-avakrdnti ) : the Bodhisattva descends into the right side of his mother’s bosom in the form of a little elephant. The school of Amarävati ahvays places at the four Cardinal points of the room the four Lokapdlas, or Guardians of the World; but sometimes, as here, it forgets to represent the elephant, and, as little as at Barhut (Cunningham, pl XXVIII, 2) and at Sänchi (see itifra, pl. IX, 2, at the top), does it think of making Mäyä lie in such a manner that she can properly present her right side to the Blessed One. The school of Gandhära is never guilty of these negligences, which are contrary to the letter of the texts (Art g.-b. du Gandh., I, figg. 149 and 160 a ; cf. however Und., fig. 148, from Amarävati). A s . The Nativity ( Jdti ) : the Bodhisattva issues from the right flank of his mother, who is Standing and holding a branch of a tree. There- fore in both views we see in the centre of the composition Mäyä Standing, with one arm raised, between the gods on the right and her women on the left. But it will be noticed that on this occasion also her attitude is in Gandhära more rational, leavingfree the right hip, by which the child is supposed to issue. As regards the latter, who on the panel at Lahore is perfectly visible, we perceive at Amarävati only the imprint of his sacred feet on the cloth, which is held by the four Lcka- pdlas together, and no longer by Indra alone. A 1 . The Great Departure ( Mahäbhinishkramand ) : the Bodhisattva leaves his native town on horseback. At Amarävati we perceive only the gate of the town (cf. the gates at Sänchi on our pll. VI-VII) and the riderless horse, preceded by a god and followed by a squire holding the parasol. In Gandhära the indication of the gate has in our repro- duction (but cf. Art g.-b. du Gandh., I, fig. 187) been cut away; yet Chandaka is to be seen holding high the parasol, while Yakshas raise the horse’s feet and Mära, armed wdih his bow, Stands at its head. Above Chandaka, again, is seena half-length figure of Vajrapäni, armed with his thunderbolt, and above Mära, between two divinities, the personification (recognizable by the turreted crown) of the town of Kapilavastu. Finally and above all, the Bodhisattva is this time shown on the back of his horse. BEGINNINGS OF BUDDHIST ART 5^5 A- i' THE FIRST GREAT (CONCEPTION, NATIVITY OR IN GANDHARA MIRAGLE VOGATION) 2» AT AMARÄVATI V «f v. §v . «I ki,.V.>- ■ *t **J •>/‘ v-*» *' "Hl« '»■v^ :- ?J **V®ÜSÄ» *» >.v h.' «.-•? «ft> r < k f-* s$y £sä& * ■ A'-v 'S'ÄÄsü 7T**rr -ti- 'mmkm ■ «. ' V V Egiäl ^Jt 3fcS? ESg%*ä äuSwl V|%-| Swj *2 _■» •'* fe*- ^Säsi ;s?grss T-Wt««- g»*g L'-r 5 *^ assren« /■S st*: -JSV PLATE IV Cf. pp. 25-26, 118 O *±rf D, w s — / ÖO u C O rt c rt u O V c 4> Q. O CU rt :3 ^~s JC CU *-• O O >iC oä ^ c o t« -Q Cu zj O J3 c O 2 3 I) CQ Q u O > 2 « -2 "? < u- 0) V uv O > S s '' 4j 9 « o- o OCr > CQ BEGINNINGS OF BUDDHIST ART PL. IV THE FOUR GREAT MIRACLES IN GANDHÄRA 2“ AT AMARÄVATi 3" AT BENARES JK'V *■;. SV* immi flfyS .M* ■ ' y. S ' ■•■■,'■■. :. r -' : -' ‘iS':'?. : 1* M '• • / • *>; ' .•'■«•■• ♦ ’n* w. .'* 1 .. **,/,' • •-• \V' . ■ 1 -'-r ■ . 'V v ., . ,\i* . r*. : .4 •• * 4 . •• .• '■<»' • , • .. .’ ';•-••• * -< s : , :s"' *. ! *‘ • * • *• ' • * '-4 ' • ÄiV v '•'• •Ws ... - ’ 4 *i-T x 'i^V 1 .. , ’• * v.-.. .«• ' '* » • ,‘ig Ei., .■ -'‘'‘-Vi-»' . ■. ß'..'.-- : v-'ü,-;:*v . ••*, •* ■ . ■ J . X . /■■ ■%; #• j : : x x X,_ ( - ^«.v. xX’-x.’ |lv v.v • v, , ’ : . _Fß ‘"-vt -:• . ■ • ■■■■■••■ -•» .... '■ '• •, ■ .' J--V' ’•■••■•' . .. 1 • 7 ;. <• :• ..... ^ •l' • Ri- j- 4 > - ■ • ■ .i : .-^ .t > •«V. * #; .V*v: : ;jo i i. - A. i*l* £rZ\J. ‘m .r. .l t - «*« . •> V. , -tv *' .fl y . *> i ‘jsi *: y, A T t.i. « 'vTr-vlt.:. v^: j; v 4 - !.# t f, •.^v. u The Representations of “Jatakas” on the Bas-reliefs of BarhutQ. Ancient India has bequeathed to us a considerable mass of texts and a very restricted number of sculptures : this means that for our instruction concerning its civilization we possess many more written documents than carved monuments. The latter deserve all the more to attract our attention. Their most ancient remains may, in fact, furnish us, as regards the external appearance and the material side of Indian life in the second Century before our era, with a number of concrete and precise details which we should never have been able to expect from the most extensive or the most profound study of the literature. I hasten to add that I do not conceive the Identification of these works of art as possible without their confrontation with the texts. These latter alone can help us to understand the mute language of the stones and, even in the absence of any explanatory inscription, to assign names to the characters, speech to the gestures, in one word titles to the subjects. In practice it is precisely thus that matters fall out. We find ourselves possessing in the holy scriptures of Bud- dhism a ready made commentary for the greater part of the surviving ancient bas-reliefs ; and these pieces of sculpture, rare or scattered thoügh they be, are, for their part, a mine of illustrationsquite appropriatetoas many episodes of the Buddhist legend. You divine without difficulty the interest (i) Lecture at the Musee Gmmet> Bibliotbcque de vulgaris«Hon du Musee Gurnet, vol. XXX, 1908. JO JÄTAKAS AT BARHUT of this intimate accord between the written and the figured versions of the same stories and the advantage still to be obtained from it for the comprehension of both. This is what I should like to verify experimentally by study- ing, in accordance with the texts and the monuments, the traditions relating to some of the previous existences of the Buddha £äkya-Muni. For this purpose we will make use, on the one hand, of the Pali collection of the Jdtakas (') and, on the other, of the bas-reliefs of the stüpa of Barhut ( 1 2 ). From their rapprochement will quite natu- rally emerge for our convenience a small illustrated collection of some twenty-five Indian tales; and you shall judge if I exaggerate their charm. I The Jdtakas. — I owe however (by way of preface) some explanations which may allow you better to under- stand the meaning and more to enjoy the flavour of these tales and images, as amusing as naive. But these necessary explanations may be extremely brief, and it will suf- fice if I rapidly recall to your mind three essential notions. The first is that, according to Indian ideas, every living being, whoever he may be, is not only sure of dying : it is no less certain that he must be born again in one of the five conditions of lost soul, ghost, animal, man or (1) Jataka, 6d. Fausbßll, 6 voll. in-8° and one volume of index, London, 1877-1897 ; translated into English under the direction of Professor E. B. Co- well, 6 voll. in-8°, Cambridge, 1895-1907. (2) Cunningham, The Stüpaof Barhut, London, 1879 (published by order of the Secretary of State for India, who has kindly authorised the repro- ductions given in this book). — Cf. S. d’Oldenbürg, Notes on Buddhist Art, St. Petersburg 1895 (in Russian; translated into English in the Journal oj the American Oriental Society, XVIII, I, Jan. 1897, pp. 183-201). JÄTAKAS AT BARHUT god; after which he will have to die again, in Order to be born once more, and so on for ever, unless he attains Salvation, which is nothing eise than the final escape from this frightful circle of transmigration. The second point is that not only the attainment of this deliverance, but the conditions even of each of the ephe- meral existences are regulated automatically by a moral law as general and as unavoidable as the physical law of gravity, the law of « works », or (to employ a Sanskrit word, the use of which has been popularized by the theoso- phists) of Karma. At the death of each being there is drawn upa kind ol debit and credit account. with assets and liabilities, between the sums of the merits and demerits accumulated by him in the course of his anterior existences : and an immediate sanction, resulting mechani- cally from this simple mathematical Operation, fatally decides his future destiny. In the third place, it is a belief no less generally admitted in India that whoever has attained to sanctity possesses, amongother supernatural faculties,the privilege of remem- bering his past existences and even those of others. This gift of extra-lucid intuition, or, as it was called, of « divine sight », no one, of course, was considered to possess in a more eminent degree than Buddha. Now it was, we are told, his habit, with regard to incidents arising in the bosom of his community, to point or justify his prohib- itions or his precepts by the opportune reminiscence ot some analogous occasion which had already confronted him in the course of his previous lives. These three points agreed, all becomes perfectly clear. We admit fully henceforth that (Jäkya-Muni, like all others, must have traversed a long series of successive re- births. We understand, also, why he accomplished on the 32 JÄTAKAS AT BARHUT way so many good actions, displayed so many virtues, rea- lized so many superhuman perfections : nothing less was required to enable him to acquire merits capable of con- veying him to the supreme dignity of Buddha. Nor could we get our information concerning his past lives from a better source, since — if we believe the tradition — it is from the mouth of the Master himself that the story had been gathered before being consigned in writing to the works which have come down to us and which it would be useless to-day to enumerate and criticize. If we proceed to make use of the Pali collection, it is not that I am under any illusion as to the antiquity of the prose com- mentary on the versified, the only canonical, part (') : the reason for this choice is simply that, as containing nearly five hundred and fifty narratives, that collection is by far the most considerable ofall. II The Bas-reliefs of Barhut. — Thus familiarized afresh with the jdtakas, you will not be surprised to note that the sculp- tors charged with the decoration of the ancient Buddhist edifices of central India have drawn copious inspirations therefrom. Not only did they, as we believe we have demonstrated above ( ä ), feel themselves under less restraint in the treatment of subjects of this kind, but moreover no subject could answer better to the needs and the aim of the artist. Seeing that it was a question of religious foundations, that aim was quite naturally the edification of the faithful, both sedentaryand pilgrim : and what could (1) On this subject see below, essay VII on the Saddanla jälaka (2) See, p. 23. 33 JÄTAKAS AT BARHUT be more edifying, in default of scenes derived from tlie last life of the Master, than narratives of which he himself had previously been the hero before becomingthe narrator? On the other hand, their familiär and picturesque character fit- ted in marvellously — certainly much better than moral considerations or metaphysical speculations — with the exigences of an art so concrete as sculpture and necessita- ting so much precision in material detail. Thus the good stone-cutters of Barhut and Sänchi have had recourse, like thesculptorsofourcathedrals, tothetreasureoftheir «Golden Legend », and have created, by the very force of things, a plastic art at once narrative and religious, which recalls in many ways the formulas of our artists of the Middle Ages. Thus it is, for example, that they did not, any more than these latter, prohibit the juxtaposition of episodes and repe- titions of persons in the framework of one and the same panel. We shall have many opportunities of remarking this naive proceeding. But it is well to form beforehand some idea of the monuments which these bas-reliefs adorned. The Buddhist sanctuary was preeminently the stüpa, that is the « tumu- lus », and its principal role was to cover up a deposit of relics. As we see it in India from the third Century before our era, it was already a stereotyped edifice of brick or stone, which presupposed the art of the architect and utili- zed that of the sculptor. Its chief feature was a full hemi- spherical dorne, usually raised on a terrace. This dorne, which was called the egg ( andri ), supported a sort of kiosk ( barmika ), itself surmounted by one or several parasols, an emblem of which you know the honorific signification in the East. The whole was surrounded, like all sacred places in India, by a high barrier, at first of wood, then directly imitated in stone from its wooden prototype. This 34 JÄTAKAS AT BARHUT enclosure was flankedat the four Cardinal points by monumental gates ( torana ), with triple curved lintels of which we have fine examples at Sänchi (*). On the most ancient specimens from the basin of the Ganges the decoration was strictly limited to the doorways and railing. At Barhut medallions were strewn over the upright pillars and cross- bars of the latter, whilst all along the inner face of the coping further motifs were ensconced in the intervals of the undulations of a Serpentine garland. You will recognize one or other alternative of this double provenance in all the reproductions which are about to defile before your eyes (PI. V-VI). One last question : Why have we chosen by preference the bas-reliefs of Barhut? The answeriseasy : because most ofthemare accompanied by an inscription written in the oldest alphabet of central India, the one which towardsthe middle of the third Century before ourera was used bythe famous king A$oka for his pious edicts. On one of the jambs of the eastern gate, found in situ, we read, in a somewhat later script, a mention of the ephemeral suze- rain dynasty of the (iurigas, which succeeded the Maur- yas towards the year 180 B. C.; it relates to the erection of the gate, or, to be more exact, the replacement an old wooden model by a « stone work »; and thus we feel certain that towards the end of the second Century the final touch must have been given to the decoration of the stüpa , commenced, no doubt, during the third. This is notall.Among the hundred and sixty graffiti, more or less, observed on the recovered debris of the balustrade more than half are restricted to giving merely the name of the donor, male or female, of such and such a pillar or (i) See below, pp. 65-66, and cf. pl. VII and VIII, 1. 35 JATAKAS AT BARHUT such and such a transverse bar; butthe rest give us expli- cit information concerning the subjects which the sculp- tures claimed to represent. Thus we have to deal with bas- reliefs sufficiently dated and identified beforehand by their authors for the benefit of their contemporaries and of the most distant posterity. In the moving sands of Indian an- tiquity we can find no better data, nor firmer ground s on which to work. III The animals. — After this indispensable preparation we may with full knowledge broach the examination of the twenty-five jätakas, of which, possessing the text, we recog- nize also the representation. Aperfectly natural plan will be imposed upon us : it willbe, ifwe may so express it,thebio- graphical sequence of these successive lives, as well as the hierarchical Order of the conditions into which the future Buddha had successively to be born. We shall see him mount one by one the rungs of the ladder of beings, first animal, then woman, and finally man. And indeed, putting aside all one’s complacency as Indianist, I do not think that the imagination of any race has ever created a finer or vaster subject for a poem than this destiny of a single being in whom are shown all aspects of life, in whom is concen- trated all the experience ofpast ages, in one word, in whom the evolution of the entire human race is reflected. Unfor- tunately, as usually happens in India, the execution comes infinitely short of the conception. To sum up in one work, spaciousand substantial, in viewofthe immense andvaried career of the Predestined One, the original Indian System ot the universe, would have required the powerful constructive genius of a Dante : Buddhism had not that good fortune. 36 JÄTAKAS AT BARHUT And this is why we do in Indian literature not meet with more than scattered fragments of the epic of the Bodhi- sattva, or future Buddha. To-day we are concerned only with the period of his previous lives, beginning with the most humble of them : but even within these limits we cannot help but regret the manner in which the monks, more solicitous for edification than for poetry, have bungled the subject. In the same way as, according to the naturalists, the embryo of mammalia reproduces in the course of its development the divers characteristics of the inferior species, soweshould like to follow through the course of the animal forms which he remembered having assumed one after the other — fish, reptile, bird, quadruped, quadruman — the whole embryology of a Bodhisattva. But for that we should have to give ourselves up, in the midst of the disorder — or of the still more outlandish order (*) — of the texts, to a veritable task of patchwork, joining together here and there the scattered portions of a poem which was never written. Evidently the idea of following out any series and grada- tion whatever did not occur to the minds of the Compilers of these stories. We must say in excuse for them that the theory of evolution troubled them, for reasons easy to guess, much less than it does us. Furthermore, if they are incapable of composing a harmonious whole, they make up for it in detail by the naive savour and, at times, humourous attractiveness of their style : it is impossibleto deny them a veritable talent as narrators. Once we have renounced for them higher ambitions, the compensation will appear to us very appreciable. Their stories of ani- (i) We know that in the Päli collection of Jätakas, for example, these are classed solely according to the increasing number of verses which they contain, without regard to subject. 37 JÄTAKAS AT BARHUT mals form in fact averitable « Jungle Book » longbefore that which did so much for the reputation of Rudyard Kipling : moreover, the latter was, in his, directly inspi- red by populär Indian tradition. Let us examine first the stories which present ani- mals only, and which, consequently, are pure « fables». There were related in India two thousand years and more ago tales with which we are still to-day familiär from infancy. I will eite, for example, that of « the Tortoise and the two Ducks », which is depicted already on the ancient balustrade of Bodh-Gayä. Among the fragments of Barhut which have survived until our time we do not find any equally'celebrated. On the other hand,when we seethe Bodhisattva appear there, he hasalready arrived at the state, or if you prefer, at the genus of bird. I. Here (Cunningham, XXVII, n) in his character of royal s wan he refuses, if we may so express it, the « hand » of his daughter to the peacock, in spite of his magnificent plumage and because of his indecent dance ( Jät . 32). II. There (Cunningham, XLV, 7) under the form of a pigeon,he reprimands the lazy and gluttonous crow, whom the cook punishes so cruelly for an attempted raid upon his pots (Jät. 42; cf. 274 and 373). III. Elsewhere (Cunningham, XLVII, 5) he is the cock perched on a tree, who wisely resists the treacherous seductions of a she-cat (Jät. 383). — La Fontaine ( Fables , II, 5) says : of a fox. IV. Still further on (Cunningham, XXV, 2), born an elephant, he exterminates, with the help of his faithful wife, a terrible enemy of his race, an enormous crab, « as broad as a threshing-floor », which, in order to devour them, had hidden itself at the bottom of the lake in which the pachyderms were accustomed to bath e(Jät. 267). 38 JÄTAKAS AT BARHUT V. As we cannot see all in detail, I will detain you only a moment with the fifth jdtaka, spoken (and even written) of as « ofthe Quail». As usual, thetext (Jdt. 357) indicates first of allon what occasion the fable was related. It was not the first time that Devadatta, the traitor cousin of Buddha and the Judas Iscariot ofhis legend, proved the hardness of his heart. At that time the Bodhisattva was born in the form of an elephant, chief of a troop of 80,000 others — India is very fond indeed of this round number. A quail, which had made her nest within their pasture ground and whose young, scarcely hatched, were still incapable of moving, begs him to spare her offspring. He willingly consents to this, and by his Orders his 80,000 subjects respect the young birds as they file past : doubtless, this is what they are in the act of doing on the right lower part of the medallion (pl. V, i).But he warns the quail that a fierce solitary is following him. The latter, deaf to all prayers, crushes the nest : you perceive one of the young ones under his right hind foot, exactly on the edge of the break in the stone, whilst the weeping mother is perched on a tree in front of him. But vengeance is not long delayed : for already on the bulging forehead of the cruel elephant a crow is busy, pecking out his eyes with its beak, whilst a big « blue fly » deposits its eggs in the sockets.A third ally of the quail, its gossip thefrog,is sea- ted at the top of the medallion in a conventional rocky landscape.Its role, in the story as on the bas-relief, is by its croaking to attract the enormous animal, which is blind and burning with fever, by making it believe in the proxi- mity of water. Thus it leads him right to the edge of a sharp precipice, where he falls headlong : only his hind part has not yet quite disappeared into the abyss. Application : the Bodhisattva was the leader of the troop of 39 JÄTAKAS AT BARHUT elephants, Devadatta was the solitary. — « Well, what about the quail »,you will ask. —You desire to know too much. IV The Bodhisattva under an animal form and mankind. — In these five fables man does not intervene. Here are five others in which he is seen and, at first, hardly to his credit. VI. In order to follow up the two preceding births, let us take a new one in the form of an elephant and even of an elephant « with six tusks » Qät. 514). The wonder- ful animal is Standing in the foreground, leaning against the banyan tree (pl. XXIX, 1) which the oldest tradition assigns to him for a shelter. Behind him, likewise in profile, is his first wife, her left temple adorned with a lotus, whilst, seen full face in the background, his second wife, furious at not having herseif received any such flowery ornament, is showing unmistakable signs of jealous anger. She goes so far as to suffer herseif to die of hunger, while formingthe aspiration of being born again as a woman and becoming queen of Benares. Scarcely has her double wish been ful- filled than she charges the cleverest hunter in the country to carry out her vengeance. Hidden at the bottom of a pit, the latter discharges a poisoned arrow into the bowels of the elephant, as is written and is elsewhere found figured, on the sculptures of Amarävati and of Gandhära. But at Barhut, when we again (on the left of the medallion) see the hero of the Story, it is already the moment when, wounded to death and practising the virtue, which was Buddhist before becoming Christian, of pardoning all offences, he docilely stoops down, in Order to allow his enemy to cut off his triple tusks with the help of an enor- 4 o JÄTAKAS AT BARHUT mous saw. We must turn to the Pali collection or to the paintings of the Ajantä Caves to learn that the wicked queen, at the sight of the tusks of her former husband, which her emissarybroughtback to her, feit nevertheless a revulsion of conscience, of which she died heart-broken (*). VII. No less naively illustrated is the ne-birth as an antelope, kurunga. On pl. V,2 we read asplainly as in the text ( Jät. 206) that there were once an antelope, a tortoise and a wood-pecker, which, united by friendship,livedtoge- ther on the shores of a lake in the depths of the woods. The antelope has just been caught in a trap : and, whilst the tortoise exerts itself to gnaw through the fetters, the wood-pecker, represented a second time on the right, does all that it can, in its character of bird of ill-omen, to delay the coming of the hunter. Soon — but no room could be found in the picture for this second adventure — the antelope will in its turn deliver the tortoise : Ainsi chacun en son endroit S’entremet, agit et travaille, as we are told by La Fontaine, who to our trio of friends has added also a rat ( Fahles , XII, 15). VIII. Another medallion (pl. V, 3) containsnoless than three episodes. At the bottom the tender-hearted stag, ruru, saves the son of the merchant, who was going to drown himself in the Ganges, and brings him on his back to the bank, where oneof his roes is stooping to drink at the river. At the top, on the right, the king of Benares, guided by the young merchant, who is evidently acting as his infor- mant, is preparing with bent bow to kill the great rare stag, the object of his desires as a hunter. But the words ad- (1) We shall have an opportunity later (Essay VII) of recurring more in detail to the Saddania-jätaka (cf. pl. XXIX and XXX). 4i JÄTAKAS AT BARHUT dressed to him by the latter quickly cause the weapons to fall from his hands, and we find him again in the centre in edifying conversation with the wonderful animal, whilst the treacherous informer seems to be hiding behind the royal person. We know from another source that the Bodhisattva, always charitable, intercedes with theking in favour of his perfidious debtor ( Jät . 482 ; not to be confused with 12). IX. Of the two births as ape, which we meet next, the one (Jät. 516) contains a story with a quite analogous moral, but the bas-relief is very much damaged (Cunnin- gham, XXXIII, 5). A Brahman, saved by the Bodhisattva, who rescues him from the bottom of a precipice, repays him with the blackest ingratitude, attempting to assassinate his benefactor during his sleep. On this occa- sion also the magnanimous animal forgives. X. More original and much better preserved is the other jätaka of Mahäkapi (Jät . 407; pl. V, 4). At that time the Bodhisattva was in the Himälayas,king of 80.000 monkeys, and he took them to feed upon a gigantic mango-tree — others say a fig-tree, and the bas-relief agrees with this — whose fruits were delicious, but the branches of which u nfor- tunately spread over the Ganges, ln spite of the precautions prescribed by the foreseeing wisdom of the « great mon- key», a fruit, hidden by a nest of ants, escapes the investi- gations ofhis people, ripens, falls into the stream of water, and is caught in the nets which surround the bathing-place ofthe king of Benares. The latter finds it so much to his taste that, in order to procure others like it, he does nothesi- tate, when he has obtained information from the « wood- rangers », to follow the river to its source, until he arrives at the wonderful tree. At night the monkeys gather together as usual : but the king of Benares has the tree surrounded 42 JÄTAKAS AT BARHUT by his archers, with fixed arrows and only awaitingthe day to begin the slaughter. There is alarm in the camp of the Bandar-log, as Kipling expresses it. Their leader reas- sures them and promises to save their lives. With a gigantic spring, of which he alone is capable, he clears a hundred bow lengths as far as the opposite bank of the river, there cuts a long rattan, the one end of which he fixes to a tree on this bank, whilst he attaches the other to his foot, and with another spring returns to his own people. But the vine which he has cut is a little too short, and it is only by Stretching out his hands that he can reach the branches of the fig-tree. Nevertheless, the 80,000 monkeys pass over this improvised bridge and descend in safety on the other j side of the river. This latter is, as usual, indicated by sinuous lines, in which a tortoise and some fish are swim- ming. But already two men of the court of the king of Benares are holding by the four corners a striped coverlet, into which the Bodhisattva, exhausted with fatigue, has only 1 to let himself fall when the last of his subjects has been saved. At the bottom (and this is the second picture within j the frame) we find him sitting in conversation with his j human colleague, who is amazed at his vigour, his inge- i nuity, and his devotion to his people. Between them a j person, of whom we see only the bust and the hands I respectfully joined together, is, if we may judge from the absence of the turban, a man of low caste, apparently that one of the « wood-rangers » who guided the royal caravan towards the Himälaya. V The Bodhisattva in human form and animals. — In this last narrative the king of Benares gives a proof of good 43 JÄ.TAKAS AT BARHUT feeling : therefore he is presented to us as an ancient incar- nation of Änanda, the well-beloved disciple. In the four preceding fahles man appears to us in the odious form of a hunter, except when he reveals himself as a monster of ingratitude, whilst the brüte continues to show an example ofthe most difficult virtues. However, we must not be in too great a hurry to conclude that, in the Jätakas, the better part always belongs to the animals : in fact, it only falls to them when they incarnatethe Bodhisattva. In other words, in the Buddhist adaptation to which these tales have been subjected the Bodhisattva has been incarnated in animal form only in those cases where it was decidedly more flattering to be beast than to be man. Here are four other examples which will abundantly prove to us that ingratitude, foolishness, the aggressive instinct, and dishonesty are not, in the minds of our authors, the privilege of humanity alone, as you might have been led to believe. The stories ought indeed to come a little later in the plan which we have adopted, since the Bodhisattva is there already cloth- ed in the human form par excellence, I mean that of a man : butfortheadvantage ofwarning ourselves against awrong idea itis worth while slightly to disarrangethehierarchical order of the sexes. XI. Do you desire further simian stories? Look on the left of pl. VI, i atthisyoung novice, or Brahmanic Student, who is giving a thirsty monkey something to drink. Now he goes away towards the right, having loaded on his shoulders, at the two ends of a stick placed like a balancing beam, his two round pitchers, suspended in nets of cord after the manner ofthe time and ofthe present day; mean- whilethe animal, who has mounted into the tree again, makes grimaces at him as a reward for his charity: « Oblige a villain, and he will spit in your face », says our proverb. 44 JÄTAKAS AT BARHUT If we are to believe the text, the monkey did worse still on the head ofthe Bodhisattva, a thing which is quite among the habits of these horrid beasts. It is needless to repeat to you that he was none otherthan D£vadatta (Jät. 174). XII. Another time {Jät. 46 and 268), a gardener, wishing totake his holiday, has charged the monkeys which haunt his garden to water it in his stead. And in fact they set about it with pitchers (pl. VI, 2); but on a Suggestion ot their king, who by nature prefers to do things methodi- cally and does not intend his water to be wasted, they begin by pulling up every shrub in the nursery, so as to measure by the length of its roots the exact quantity of water which it will require. The Bodhisattva is the « wise man », who enters by the left and surprizes them while thus occupied. He does not restrict himself to statingthat hell is paved with good intentions : there is no lack of moralizing, also, about the stupidity of the king of the monkeys : if he is the most intelligent, what must be thought ofthe rest ofthe troop? XIII. On anotherfragment ofthe coping (Cunningham, XLI, 1-3) is figured in two successive scenes the story of a stupid fighting ram, who is inspired by his warlike instincts to Charge a Brahmanic ascetic : we must say in his excuse that the latter was wearing a garment of skin (Jät. 324). The whole humour of the affair is that the monk imagines, atthe moment when the ram stoops, ready to rush upon him, that even the beasts bow before his worth. It is in vain that a young merchant, no other than the Bodhisattva, warns him of his imprudent mistake : there he is soon on his back, upset along with the double bürden which he was balancing on his shoulder. XIV. Again in another place it is the turn ofthe Bodhisattva to carry the water-vessel and wear the big chignon 45 JÄ.TAKAS AT BARHUT and the summary costume of an ascetic (pl. VI, 3); and it is in this guise (and not thatof a tree-god, as the commentary gives it, Jdt. 400) that he is present as a simple spectator at a very amusing scene. Two Otters, by uniting their efiorts, have dragged a big fish to the dry ground on the bank of a river, the one holding it by the head,the other by thetail; but, their United exploit accomplished, they quarrel about the sharing of the booty and take a passing jackalas arbiter. The latter is represented twice, first seated between the litigants, then walking proudly away to the right : he is carrying the best piece in his mouth and leaving to the two deceived Otters only the head and tail of their prey. The moral is easily guessed. The text States very explicitly that the best law-suits in the world only serve to enrich the coffers of the king; and you, for your part, have in the « Jackal and the two Otters » atready recognised an Indian variant of the « Oyster and the Litigants » of La Fontaine. XV. For the rest we must not in the presence of the extreme variety of these tales claim to set up too general rules. A little further on (pl. VI, 4) animals reappear side by side with another identical incarnation of the Bodhisattva, and this time they play a most honou- rable part. The bas-relief is here much simplified in comparison with the Version of the Jdtaka (488), which gives to the hero a sister, six brothers and two servants. At Barhut we see at his side only a woman — likewise clo- thed in the ascetic costume — who may very well in the intention of the sculptor be the wife of his lay years, and of whom the Pali prose, with its accustomed and perhaps excessive modesty, will have made his sister : has it not been bold enough QJdt. 461) to give us Räma as the brother, and not the husband,of Sita? On the other hand, a monkey and an elephant likewise take part in this scene, 4 6 JÄTAKAS AT BARHÜT unless the latter is merely the mount of Qakra.: for the « Indra of the Gods » looks upon it as a duty to bring back the bündle of lotus stalks (rather similar to our bundles of asparagus and just like those which I have seen sold, nowadays, in Kashmir, in the market of Srinagar), which gave its name to the story. That is all the food of the ascetic, and on three days in succession (lakra, in Order to prove him, has stolen it, but without succeeding in moving him. At the moment when he repents, each one of the characters, both human and animal, was about to exonerate himself from this theft by a veracious oath, even themonkey declaring himself incapable ofit; for, it is said somewhere, « in the Company of saints everyone becomes a saint ». VI The Bodhisattva and women. — With these reserva- tions, these two series of examples, preserved by chance, suffice to prove what I was just now saying concerning the double attitude of the Jdtakas with regard to animals. If from the beasts we now pass — without any idea of comparison, be it said — to the women, we observe that at the very first the same distinction seems necessary. Either we are in the presence of one of those beautiful types of faithful wife which are an honour to Indian litera- ture, and then we may safely wager that the Bodhisattva is this time incarnated in the feminine form; or elseit is a masculine role which is assignedto him, and in this case the texts, giving free scope to an instinct for satire worthy of our Gaul of the Middle Ages, becomes inexhaustible on the subject of the malice and perversity of the fair sex- The stories which they teil of it (we shall, of course, 47 JÄTAKAS AT BARHUT adduce only those which are figured, more or less, at Barhut) lack neither raciness nor verve. In fact, whilst the stories which have come before us up tili now were pro- perly fables, we have now to do with the kind of jolly tales which in the Romance languages of mediaeval Europe were called « fabliaux » or « fableaux ». XVI. On a medallion which can hardly with propriety be reproduced (Cunningham, XXVI, 7), we witness the conception and birth of the rishi Rishya^ringa (Ante- lope-horn) or Ekagringa (Unicom), as celebrated in the Brahmanic epic as in the Buddhist legend. Son of an anchorite and a roe, he knows nothing of a sex to which he is not even indebted for his mother, and conse- quentlyhe will be an easy prey to the first women he meets. On this common trunk are grafted two groups of stories. In the first, the young hermit is scarcely adolescent and lives with his father. A neighbouring king, in Order to put an end to a famine, or simply because he has no son, forms the design of taking him for his son-in-law : and his own daughter, or, in the less ancient versions, some courtesans charge themselves with the task of leading him astray and bringing him back to the court ( Jdt. 526; Mahdvastu, III, 143; Mahdbhärata, III, 110-113 etc), Without great difficulty they succeed, as soon as the father has turned his back, being helped as much as they could desire by the naive candour of the young man, who as yet has seen nothing of the world, for whom a rebounding ball seems a märvel, whotakes cakes for delicious fruits without pips, and who calls carriages « moving huts ». He appre- hends still other causes of amazement, not less ingenious, but already less innocent, at the aspect, so new to him, of his feminine visitors: and you can easily conceive that this theme of the spontaneous awakening of the sexual instinct 48 JÄTAKAS AT BARHUT in the most ignorant of young men should have served as an example to Boccacio and for a story to La Fontaine ( Contes , III, i, « The Geese of Brother Philip », taken from the preamble to the fourth day of the Decameron ). Of the second form of the legend the clearest summary that we at present possess has been preserved to us by the Chinese pilgrim Hiuan-tsang with reference to a ruined convent of Gandhära, in the extreme north-west of India. « It was in this place, he teils us, thatformerly there livedthem/«' Unicom; this rishi, having allowedhimselfto be led astray by a courtesan, lost his supernatural powers; thecourtesan mounted on his shoulders andthus returned to the town » (cf. Jät. 523; Dacakumdracarita, II, 2 etc.). Here there is no longer any question of the father of the hermit, and the age of the latter is left undetermined. On the other hand, what we are told of him reminds us of the fahles detailed in our relations of animal stories, the so-called « Bes- tiaria » of the Middle Ages, concerning the Unicom which only a young girl is able to capture : « And she (says their source, the Physiologus) commands the animal and it obeys her; and she leads it away to the king’s palace ». Why there rather than elsewhere? This unexpected trait forms, on the contrary, an integral part of the adventure of the shy anchorite Unicom, whom the king’s daughtervery natu- rally leads to her father, or whom the courtesan has wagered that she will bring back to the court. And, again, the piquant detail that this latter mounts astride on the shoulders of the wise rishi awakens invincibly the memory of the celebrated « Lay of Aristotle ». XVII. A fragment of another medallion, found only by the greatest chance, bears as title the three first words of the one stanza which constitutes the ancient nucleus of Jätaka 62 : « Themusic thatthe Brahman... » :and, in fact, 49 JATAKAS AT BARHUT it shows us a caste man seated, with his eyes bandaged and playing the harp, whilst a coupledance before him (Cunning- ham, XXVI, 8). He is the chaplain of the king of Benares, and had, we are told, a habit of gaming with his master. But the king, each time he threw the dice, used, in Order to bring himself good luck, to hum four verses, taken from some populär song, which were not very respectful to the virtue of women, and by force of this truth he won every time. The Brahman, in a fair way to being ruin- ed, gives up playing and decides to rear a new-born girl- child without her ever seeing any other man than himself. She has scarcely reached marriagable age when he, in his turn, challenges the king, whose word.havingbecomefalse, is no longer efficacious, so that he loses game after game. Thwarted, and guessing what is the snake under the rock, he charges one of his agents to seduce the only real virtue in his kingdom. This plan does readily succeed; and it must be believed that intelligence comes to a girl still more quickly than to a boy. The young novice’s mind is so readily and so effectually enlightened, that she consents toorganize the little scene of comedy represented by the bas-relief, and itis with her lover that she is dancing to the sound of the harp playedbytheblinded Brahman. I lay no stress upon the rest of the story or how she succeeds in exonerating herseif by making afalse oath true, a device equally well known to our folk-lore : the important thing is that in this Indian heroine you have been allowed to salute in passing the type of the eternal Agnes. XVIII. Even the single story consecrated to the praise ofwoman falls not to be well-known to our medisevalists under the name of « Constant du Hantel ». Certainly, we must immediately deduct from this last story some details which truly smack too much of its native soil : I 50 JATAKAS AT BARHUT refer to the vengeance exercised by the villain on the wives « of the provost, the forester and the priest». This manner of applying the law of retaliation, and even with interest — for the peasant does to another what the other has merely had the intention of doing to him — is a trait eminently Gallic ; and you will not be in any way astonished to observe that it was evidently the part which La Fontaine desired to retain of the story, when he put it into verse in his tale of « the people of Rheims » : you will un- derstand no less dearly that the Indian versions contain nothing of the kind. For the rest, the accord would be truly too astonishing, if it were not a case of a borrowing by European literature from thatoflndia ( Jät. 54 6\Kathä~ saritsdgara, I, 4 etc.). Taken on the whole, itis the Pali text which most nearly approaches the bas-relief of Barhut (pl. V, 5) : there also Amara, the virtuous wife, whose husband is absent, has four suitors to whom she assigns an interview for each of the watches of the same night, and it is also in great esparto baskets that she causes her tricked lovers to be packed by her servants. At the moment chosen by the sculptor we are in the midst of the court: the king is seated on his throne, surrounded by his minis- ters, and at his right side one of the women of the harem is waving a fly-flapper. Amarä is Standing on the other side, her left hand on the shoulder of her attendant, and at her order the covers of three of the baskets have already been raised and the heads of three of the delinquents unco- vered, whilst two coolies bring the fourth. But the Singha- lese Compilation dismisses this story in ten lines, as an episode in a long narrative, and consents to see in Amarä only the wife of the absent Bodhisattva : for it is quite resigned to represent the latter as an animal, a pariah or even a bandit, but never, no ! never, a woman, be she, as in JÄTAKAS AT BARHUT $1 this ca.se, a paragon of all the virtues. If, however, we come to realize that tlie j&tdkcL in question has the honour of a complete medallion and that these representations have no edifying interest except on the condition that the future Buddha there appears in person, it will soon be granted that there are great chances that the sculptor regarded him asincarnated here in the feminine form. Even if the author had not himself made this identification, everything invited the spectator to do so. The inscription on the bas- relief ( yavamajhakiyam jätaham ) does not contradict it : for the Pali tradition also makes Amara to be born in one of the four suburbs Yavamajjhaka, situated at the four gates of the Capital of Mithilä. However it may be as regards this particular point, the tremendous buffoonery of the Situation could not escape the worshippers, and they must have been at least as much amused as edified. If we ourselves look at it more closely, we shall not be able to avoid the impression that, with all her virtue, Amarä was not exempt from mischief. Doubt- less she had recourse to the arsenal of her tricks only for a good motive; but we tremble at the thought of what would happen to her husband, if this astute woman em- ployed in deceiving him a quarter of the malice that she displays in keeping herseif faithful. In one word, and with all taken into account, whether the story be written in praise of the fair sex or not, it is always the same crea- ture of perfidy, if not of voluptuousness, with whom we have to deal : or, to put it better, we observe that the quite monastic mistrust and aversion which Buddhism professed towards woman are (we may say) never disarmed. Of all the snares of Mära the Malignant, isshe not the worst? And was it not solely in the rupture of all family ties, com- mencing with the conjugal tie, that the assured pledge of Salvation was supposed tobe found? 52 JATAKAS AT BARHUT XIX. Among our bas-reliefs we find still another fairly picturesque illustrationof thismoralconception. Itis taken fromthe history of Mahäjanaka Qat. 539). A son, born in exile, of the widow of a king of Mithilä, I will pass over the adventures whichfinally re-establish him on the throne which his uncle has usurped, and at the same time win for him the hand of his beautiful cousin Sivali. What is of importance to us here is the resolution, which he soon forms, oftakingto the religious life and the useless eflorts to which his wife resorts in order to retain him in the world. At last he departs; but his wife belongs to that variety of woman which our writers of vaudevilles call « clinging » ; and she obstinately adheres to his Steps. Vainly does a remnant of politeness lead him to make use of various Symbols in order to mark his decided intention to deprive himself henceforth of a companionship which he looks upon as an obstacle to his deliverance : she will listen to none of them, not even the plainest, such as the one represented, with the names of the persons to vouch for it, on the railing at Barhut (pl. VI, 5). The king, who has already cast aside hisdiadem, is Standing, still followed by the queen, in front of an armourer’s bench and with the two first fingers raised is speaking in parables. The arti- zan is about to straighten an arrow which he has just put through the fire, and, closing one eye, is examining with the other whether it is straight. To a premeditated question from Mahäjanaka he replies that one can judge the straight- ness of things much better with a single one eye than with two : for, except in solitude, there is no salvation for man. XX. This monkish moral is, however, susceptible of a quite touching revulsion, or rather of quite gracious over- sight. Evidently it was impossible for the Compilers of this great collection of folk-lore to bring all the narratives JATAKAS AT BARHUT 53 within their narrow ränge of edification : and thus itis that a delightful story of love must have found grace in their eyes. It is not preserved to us at Barhut, except by a miserable sketch (Cunningham, XXVII, 12); but it is still in existence on the Boro-Budur of Java (’), where the human bust of the kinnara is no longer terminated by foliage, butby the body of a bird. The king of Benares, while out hunting, perceives a couple of these marvel- lous beings covering each other with caresses and tears. He questions them, and learns from the mouth of the woman — always the more talkative — that they were once separated by the storm and had to spend the night on either side of the river. Now it will soon be seven hundred years since this mischance, and their life is a thou- sand years : however, they have not yet quite conso- led each other for the Separation of a few hours, and since then have been unable to help mingling tears with their caresses. — What an example for lovers, thinks the king; and it will not surprise you to learn that, with the help of this simple legend, Buddha forthwith reconciled the king and queen o^Kosala, very much in love with one another, who weresulking (Jat. 504; reject 481 and 485). VI The Bodhisattva and the castes. — This last story is less a « fableau » than a fairy tale. As for the preceding one, it should rather be classed in the category of those « exam- ples », wherewith our preaching friars of the Middle Ages were accustomed to stud their sermons. The five that still remain to be reviewed are all edifving stories which ( 1 ) See below, Essay VIÜ. 54 JÄTAKAS AT BARHUT similarly served the needs of the Buddhist preaching. They will perhaps seem to you only moderately amusing : but in India morality must always have its turn. In them the Bodhisattva is constantly reborn in the state of man, that state so difficult to attain, we are told, which, while the one most favourable of all to the acquisition of merits, is also the only one in which the candidate for the Bodhi ever has a chance of attaining his object. Each time this marvellous being, whatever may be his caste, astonishes us with the proofs of his skill, wisdom and disinterestedness : but it is especially in his royal births that he gives free course to his virtue. Let us not forget that the Buddhists professed to place the dass of the Ksha- triya, or, as we should say, the nobility of the sword, to which their Master belonged, above that of the Brahmans : naturally, we shall have to follow the Order established by them in the hierarchy of the castes. XXI. The Bodhisattva knew all social positions, even that which consists in being under the ban of society, as is the case with the pariah. However, in the lowest Position in which we recognise him on the bas-reliefs of Barhut, he has already arrived atthe thirdclass, thatof the Vaifyas, that is to say, of peasant proprietor or town shop- keeper. It is as a son of a citizen of £rävasti that by an ingenious stratagem he consoles his father, who was still inconsolable tor the death of his grandfather (Jät . 352; Cun- ningham, XLVII, 3). He brings water and food to the dead body of an ox, abandoned at the gates of the town; and when his father, informed by friends, runs up to remons- trate with him, he answers him in the same tone and has not much trouble in proving to him that the more foolish of the two is not the one whom people think. For it is folly, according to Buddhist ideas, to weep for the dead. JATAKAS AT BARHUT 55 XXII. Elsewhere the Bodhisattva has become the Pandit Vidhura, minister of the king of Indraprastha. The fame of his wisdom and eloquence is so great, that the wife of a Naga conceives a fancy for hearing him speak. In Order to make more sure of him being brought to her, the undine pretends to have a « desire », that of eating his heart. Behold thehusband much disturbed : « As well ask for the moon », he remarks Qät. 545). But what is there that women cannot do ? The four panels of one pillar are consecrated to the description of how the daughter of the Naga was not long in finding a young captain of the genii, who, for love of her « beaux yeux », charges himself with the Commission; how the young gallant challenges the king of Indraprastha to play, and with one cast of the dice wins his minister from him; how he vainly endeavours to kill the latter by throwing him down from the top of a mountain; and how, in the end, he decides to take him alive to the house of the Naga, to the great satisfaction of his future mother-in- law, who thus obtains from the mouth of the sage the little private lecture which she desired (Cunningham, XVIII). And, as is always the case with these Buddhist tales, all is well that ends well. XXIII. But, as I have told you, it is especially when the Bodhisattva is born again as a Kshatriya that his acts foretell the great renunciation of which he is to offer a perfect model in the course of his last existence. Once, at a time when human life was exceedingly long, he renounces the throne v and the world from the moment of the appear- ance of his first white hair (Jät . 9). His barber is ordered to show it to him as soon as he perceives it : and it is for that reason that,on pl. VI, 6, he interrupts the combingof his master's long hair. King Makhädeva, although he still has 84.000 years to live, abdicates at once in favour of his 56 JÄTAKAS AT BARHUT son — apparently the third person in the scene — and retires to lead in his own park of mango-trees the ascetic life. XXIV. Another time he does not wait so long to abandon his throne, and he is still in fullyouth when he yields place to his youngest brother (Jät. 181 ; Mahävastu , II, 73). The jealousy and suspicions of the latter soon force him to go into exile, and, thanks to his talent as an archer, he earns his living in the Service of a neighbouring king. The bas- relief represents this Asadisa at the moment when, by means of an arrow skilfully shot, he gathers for his master a mango from the very top of a high tree (Cunningham, XXVII, 13). The continuation of the story makes him again protect his ungrateful brother against the seven hostile princes whowere besieging him, andfinally he enters — or rather, according to the Indian expression, he « departs » — into religion. XXV. Once even it is from his earliest infancy that he gives evidence of his resolution to know nothing of this world, and he feigns to be dumb, deaf and para- lyzed (Jät. 538). In vain are many experiments tried to prove him ; neither privations nor delicacies, nor toys, nor noises, nor lights, nor fear, nor suffering, nor (when heis nearly sixteen years old) voluptuous temptations can drawfrom him a gesture, a cry, or any sign whateverof sensibility or intelligence. That is why you see him lying so stiffin the lap of his father, the king of Benares (pl. V, 6). The latter ends by becoming weary of such a son, and Orders his chariot-driver to take him out of the town and bury him, dead or alive. Thus, at the bottom, we see Prince S£miya Standing near an empty quadriga, whilst on the right the driver is busy with a hoe, hollowing out a grave. However, the prince suddenly decides to move and speak: 57 JÄTAKAS AT BARHUT but when his father, informed by the driver, runs up with his suite, full of joy, it is only to find him already trans- formed by the providential Intervention of the king of the gods into an ascetic, and sitting in the shadow of the trees of his hermitage : and this forms the subject of the third and last episode, on the right top border of the medallion. The texts specify elsewhere that in this last existence the Bodhisattva had reaiised the perfection of « determination », in the life of Vidhura (XXII) that of « wisdom », in that of Mahäjanaka (XIX) of « heroism », in that of the ascetic with the lotus stems (XV) of « detachment », in that of the king of the monkeys (X) of « truth », in that of the stag (VIII) and the elephant with six tusks (VI) of « gene- rosity »; and we know from a detached fragment that at Barhut also was seen the birth in which, under the name of Prince Vi^vantara, he attained by the gift of his goods, his children and even his wife, the acme of « charity ». Thus we recognize on our bas-reliefs some of the most celebrated jätakas ; and of the ten Cardinal virtues only « patience », « benevolence » and « equanimity » are not represented by name. Further, we must not forget that the researches of Cunningham have collected scarcely more than a third of the railing : the rest had been carried away and destroyed by neighbouring villagers, and this van- dalism justifies the precaution, taken by the English archseo- logist, of transporting all that had survived to the Museum at Calcutta. Inversely, it is only right that I should warn you that we are far from having identified all the bas-reliefs which have been exhumed. We might draw up another list, almost as long, of those which still await (the greater number, but not all, for want of an inscription) a satisfactory explana- tion. Some motifs are evidently taken from jätakas not to be 5 8 JÄTAKAS AT BARHUT read in the Pali collection : and this is a salutary warning to us that the latter, considerable though it may be, is far from being complete. Besides, we might have drawn attention in passing to a number of discordances in detail, as regards the treatment of subjects certainly identified, be- tween the prose part of this collection and the bas-reliefs, whilst we have remarked the almost literal harmony between a lapidary inscription and the text of one of the versified refrains known under the populär title of gdthd (*). But these are remarks which are of interest chiefly to specialists. I would mention only one point, namely, that they autho- rize us to believe that the sculptors of Barhut worked not in accordance with a given text, as did those of Boro- Budur, but according to a living tradition, as it echoed in their memory orwas transmitted among them. I will add that they worked also according to nature : you have been enabled to judge for yourselves of their honest carefor true detail. Each photographic reproduction of their works has shown you, as through a window opening upon the past, the costumes, weapons, tools, furniture and vehicles employed in India two thousand years ago ; and thus in one hour they have given you through your eyes rnore concrete ideas about that civilization than you would have been able to acquire in a year’s reading. But the greatest service that they have rendered us — for from it flow all the others — was when they carried their foresight to the point of engraving by the side of the majority of their com- positions the titles of the subjects which they had intended to represent. What gratitude ought we not to feel towards them for that just distrust of their own talent, so rare among artists! It has given us the key to ancient Indian (i) See below some remarks on the Saddanta-jataha (Essay VII). JÄ.TAKAS AT BARHUT 59 art. So much modesty, sincerity and conviction, do they not go far towards making up for the lack of technical skill? I am sure you will not be severe towards them in this respect : and if these fables, these fabliaux and mora- lities, have interested your eyes no less than your ears, you will thank not only the narrators of them, but also the worthy old image-makers of India. PLATES V-VI The Barhut sculptures here reproduced are borrowed, ■with the permission ofthe Secretary of State for India, from the beautiful publi- cation of General A. Cunningham, The Slüpa of Bharhut (London, 1879). Fl. V. 1 (C.,pl. XXVI, 5): described on p. 38 » 2 (C., pl. XXVII, 9) : » 40 )) 3 (C., pl. XXV, 1) : » » 40-41 *) 4 (C., pl. XXXIII, 4) : » » 41-42 » S (C., pl. XXV, 3) : )) » 50 M 6 (C., pl. XXV, 4) : » » S 6 PI. VI. 1 (C., pl. XLVI, 8) : » » 43 )) 2(C., pl. XLV, 5): )) )> 44 )) 3 (C., pl. XLVI, 2) : )) » 45 » 4 (C-, pl. XLVI1I, 7) : » 45-4 6 » 5 (C.,pl. XLIV, 2): » )) 52 » 6(C., pl. XLVIII, 2) : )) » 55 JÄTAKAS AT BARHUT PL. V IN MEDALLIONS •' ('S*-. X6SK& ■ m 7*r hm. ■f •>, JÄTAKAS AT BARHUT PL. VI xe r, ON THE RAIL GOPING » 5 ^ Vif. ft :M-L ■ Pf tr 1 i ttcn *=r i sr*»»n i iir^fermwriip., l : ü£sg r KS ■ , %*' . inoMinBmi .iw^niHini inr,-.- r 9Hb *.4 «£> f.-V? 4?; __ -. t/V--. :-.v-Y ; ... v« ■ 3S&» t'S'S ijm 3&ä§Si vvSFi' The Eastern Gate of the Sanchi Stupa (1) The visitor to the Indian Museum in London, the Mus6e Guimet in Paris, or the Museum für Völkerkunde in Berlin, cannot fail to notice among the objects therein exhibited a monumental gate covered with bas-reliefs; but there is every chance in the world that he will confine himself to casting a quick, heedless glance towards it in passing. A reproduction of a remote Indian original, this moulding naturally cannot have any claim to speak to our European eyes or to awaken in our minds the remem- brance of any traditional legend, But then let us bring before it any native of India; he will remain as puzzled and, if he iscandid, as silent as we. Do not, however, hastily conclude from this that these sculptures have never had any meaning for anyone, because to-day their compatriots themselves no longer understand anything about them. Only imagine a similar experiment to be tried with us, and that we were set down, for example, before one of the porches of the cathedral of Chartres; how many would be able to read without preparation in the magnificent illustrated Bible so suddenly opened before them? You know that in the eighteenth Century no one would have been found capable of thisand in the nine- teenth it required a whole phalanx of patient investigators to rediscover the lost meaning of the scenes and figures painted on the Windows, or carved under the vaults, by (i) Lecture at the Musee Guimet, in Bibliotheque de Vulgarisaiion du Musee Guimet, vol. XXXIV, 1910. 62 EASTERN GATE OF SÄNCüi our image-makers of the Middle Ages. The conditions are exactly the same for this Ga e of Sänchi; with time the subject of its bas-reliefs has ended by becoming, even for the descendants of those who once built or carved it, a veritable enigma. I invite you to join me in investigating its meaning. I will add that, disagreable or not, this research is a ’kind of Obligation, which we may no longer with decency shirk. It was in fact the original building, and not the reproduction, that just missed coming to Paris. In 1867-8 the Begum of Bhopäl was instigated to offer to the Emperor of the French one of the four great gates of the stüpa of Sänchi, that is to say, a portion of the most beautiful, and even of the unique architectural whole that we have retained from Ancient India. The Begum, indifferent, desired nothing better; but the English resident intervened, and this act of vandalism — we are all the more ready after this lapse of time to designate it as such, since the project feil through — was fortunately not perpetrated(*). However, the Anglo-Indiangovernment understood that there were there archaeological remains capable of arousing the interest of artists and scholars. From 1869 it caused to be executed at great cost several mouldings of the eastern gate, one of theonly two which hadremain- ed Standing; and with great liberality it divided them between London, Edinburgh, Dublin, Berlin, Paris, etc. The one which feil to our share had already known some vicissitudes, tili at last it found an asylum — if not a shel- ter — in the courtyard of the Mus6e Guimet. On the other hand, this costly and somewhat embarrassing present (1) See Roüsselet, L'lndc des Rajahs, pp. 522-25 and cf. H. Cole, Great Buddhist Tope at Satichi, introd. (Tope is the Anglo-Indian equivalent ofthe Sanskrit stüpa ). 63 EASTERN GATE OF SÄNCH1 has not yet been made in France the object of any special study. It is this too prolonged neglect that \ve are about to endeavour to repair. I I The Great Sdnchi Stupa. —The numerous ruins which are scattered over the environs of the village of Sänchi-Känä- keda (in Sanskrit Käkanäda), near to Bhilsa, are situated right in the heart of Central India, on the ancient commer cial highway between Pätaliputra (lIiM^sOpa, Patna), the Capital of the Maurya emperors, and Bharukaccha (Baprrafc, Bharotch or Broach) by way of Ujjayini Ujjain). Sanchi has now become a Station of the Indian Midland Railway, and the expresses stop there by request to set down a few tourists. But it is doubtless to the abandonment of the ancient route and to the subsequentthinning of the population that the ancient Buddhist sanctuaries with which the rocky hill is crownedhave owed their exceptional escape from thefanaticism of the Musalman invaders as well as the cupidity of the modern Hindus. Whilstat 3ookilometres to theNorth-Eastthe Contemporary and quite analogous stüpa of Barhut, with which we shall so often have to compare it, had been three parts destroyed by the villagers of the neighbourhood, who made abusiness of exploiting it, the principal monument at Sanchi was still in an excellent state of preservation when it was visited for the first time, in 1818,by General Taylor and described in 1819 hy Captain Fell. In compensation, it had much to suffer three years later from the brutal excavations inflicted upon it, without mercy for art and without profit to Science, by some English 64 EASTERN GATE OF SÄNCH1 amateurs (*). From 1881 to 1883 the Archaeological Department exerted itself to repair as well as possible this grievous devastation. Thev closed up theenormous, gaping breach, which had been made in one third of the central dome, under pretext of ascertaining whetherit weresolid or hollow; they reerected (placing, it is true, several of the lintels so as to face backwards and overlooking in the debris sorae fragments of the jambs) the Southern and Western gates, thesecond of which had fallen only under the weight of the rubbish thoughtlessly thrown upon it; finally, with azeal almost excessive, they cleared the whole site, without sparing a single tree. Fig. 1 in pl. VII, a kind of horseback view taken from the east in the rising sun, will explain to you better than long descriptions the state and general aspect of the building ( s ). Like every old stüpa, it is composed essentially of a massive hemispherical dome, raised upon a pediment likewise circular, which was reached by a flight of Steps. The whole was made of bricks covered with a stone facing, which in its turn was overlaid with a thick layer of mortar, still existing in places. The terrace, in this case 4 m ,25 high and i m ,yo wide, served evidently as apromen- ade for the perambulations of the faithful. The dome — a kind of giant reliquary, though in the particular case the deposit of relics has neyer been discovered — measures 12™,80 in height, with a diameter of 32 m ,30. The only element to-day lacking to this developed tumulus is the architectural motif which served as a crown : but in though* (1) On all these points, see the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Uh 1834, p. 489, and IV, 1835, p. 712. (2) I owe the communication of this photograph and the following one* to the kindness of Mr. J. H. Marshall, the distinguished Director General of Archteology in India. EASTERN GATE OF SÄNCH1 65 it is easy to complete the whole by the aidof thebas-reliefs (see pl. VII, 2). They frequently reproduce the character- istic Silhouette of this pinnacle, with the honorific parasol surmounting it, which must have raised the total height to about 25 metres. According to the invariable custom in India this sanctuary is surrounded by a stone railing, which protec- ted it from profanation, and which, in spite of its massive weight, is evidently an imitation of a wooden fence. In form slightly oblong, it measures across from east to west 43 n \6o, and from north to south i m ,io more, in Order to leave room for the flight of Steps. In the uprights, 3™, 10 high, were fixed with mortises and tenons three cross-bars and one coping, the latter o m ,68 high. Atthefour Cardinal points an opening was arranged in such a way that the breach was not apparent to the eye, masked as it was in each case by a double elbow in the enclosure. When it was thought to add fronting doors to these slanting entrances, it was necessary to attach the right jarnb of each of these latter to the railing by a joint at right angles : in this way were formed four rectangular vestibules, shut in at the sides, and with the front and back faces corres- ponding alternately as regards rail and opening. These four gates,or toranas, of almost unvarying dimen- sions and arrangements, are likewise the work of carpenters rather than of masons; and it is even surprising that they should have had the boldness to execute thern in stone. They rest on two square pillars, o m ,68 broad, 4 metres in height, with an interval of 2 m ,i5. These two jambs are surmounted by two great capitals, i nl ,2 5 in height and decorated in one case with dwarfs, in another with lions, and in two with elephants. These latter in their turn Support no less than three lintels slightly curved, projecting 66 EASTERN GATE OF SÄNCH1 on the two sides, theselateral projections becomingsmaller and smaller, doubtless in Order to accentuate the impres- sion of height in the whole (cf. pl. VIII, i). The entire construction attains a height of about io metres, without reckoning the mystic Symbols at the summit. Caryatides of a fairly successful outline connect the outer side of the capitals with the first architrave; other figures of men, women, horses with their riders, elephants with their drivers formerly adorned the spaces of the blocks which separate the lintels. It should be remarked at once that these statues are almost the only pieces of sculpture finished in full relief that ancient India has bequeathed to us; most frequently the images even of divinities, such as those which here decorate the bases of the uprights, were not entirely detached from the stone whence the artists’ chisel had elicited them. Then again, lintels, coins and jambs have all their visible faces covered with bas-reliefs. The question is to discover what these sculptures repre- sent. II Means of Identification. —At first sight theproblem seems to be susceptible of the most simple solution. In fact one sees almost everywhere graffiti, deeply incised in the ancient Indian alphabet, which, like ours, reads from left to right; it seems then that we have only to come close and decipher them. But, in proportion as we advance in this task, our hope of finding the kind of information which we are seeking diminishes. All that we can learn from each of the circa 375 inscriptions cut in the railing and in the gates ( l ) is (1) These inscriptions have last been studied by G. Bühler in £/>«•* graphia Indica, vol. II, pp. 87 sqq. ; j66 sqq. EASTERN GATE OF SÄNCH1 67 that a certain individual or a certain guild made a gift of such and such an upright or cross-bar, in short, of the piece on which, precisely in order that no one might be ignorant of the fact, they havetaken care to have their namesinscrib- ed. As a type we may take the one displayed right in the middle of the facade of the left jamb of the eastern gate; it teils us simply: Korarasa Ndgapiyasa Acchdvadc sethisa dämm ihabo : « (This) « pillar (is the) gift of the banker of Acchävada, Nägapiya, « a native of Kurara ». Certainly these indications are far from being entirely devoid of interest. First of all, they teil us that, if not the monument itself, at least its enclosure was built by public subscription, with special appropriation of the contribu- tions, as in certain modern religious foundations. Moreover these votive and somewhat ostentatious epigraphs enlighten us indirectly on many points — for example, as regards the social condition of the individual subscribers, who nearly all belong to the middle dass, merchants and bankers, the dass from which the Buddhist laity were mostfreelyrecruited;or again,concerning thedetails of the artisticexecution, as when one of the jambs of the Southern gate is given us as an offering in kind, the chef-d’oeuvre, and at the same time the ex-voto, of the carvers in ivory of the neighbouring town of Vidi^ä; or lastly, concerning the date of the sculptures, which the incidental mention on this same gate of the reigning king Sätakani allows us to connect with the second, or first, Century before the Christian era. But, as regards the subject of the scenes represented, theinscriptionsand their engravers are aggra- vatingly silent. Evidently the sculptors of Sänchi, as a means of ensuring at all periods the comprehension of their work, counted on their artistie talent as illustrators: wherein 68 EASTERN GATE OF SANCH! they showed themselves much less far-seeing and less mo- dest than their confreres who had justdecorated the balus- trade of Barhut, and who hadij not considered it futile to engrave on the stone the titles of their bas-reliefs. It is as well to state at once that an analogy with a later and well-known motif, a characteristic detail awakening theremembranceof atext, a determinate number ol objects forming a traditional group, all these helps and others besides would, no doubt, in the end have opened a way to the interpretation of some of the Sänchi panels; but it is doubtful if these isolated discoveries would ever have gone beyond the stage of ingenious hypotheses, or have deserved to be looked upon as anything but jeux d'esprit. If in this matter we are able to arrive at certainties of a scientific character, we owe it to the worthy image-makers of Barhut. It is they who, thanks to the perfectly explicit indications which they themselves have transmitted to us on the subject of their compositions, have furnished us with a key to ancient Buddhist art ('). In the case of Sänchi, where we have to explain a monument closely connected in spirit, as in space and time, with Barhut, it may easily be conceived that these precious and trustwor- thv data will necessarilv be our first and constant j - resource. While forming a fund of interpretation acquired in advance, they will at the same time furnish a firm starting point for fresh research; for we may expect that one identification will lead to another, and that the panels will mutually explain each other, were it only by reason of their proximity. On the whole, we must not despair of seeingthe majority of these pictures in stone come to life by degrees under an attentive gaze; and, thanks to their I ( i; (i) See above, Essay II, p. 29. EASTERN GATE OE SÄNCH 1 69 expressive mimicry, thev will end by making us under- stand the message which it wastheir mission to transmit to posterity. III Decorations, Images andsymbols. —If weapproach in a prac- tical manner the task thus defined, it will immediately appear to us that we could not have entirely dispensed with the information, or the confirmations, furnished by the written evidence of Barhut, except so far as concerns the purely decorative bas-reliefs. It is a matter of course that the natural intelligence is always and every- where sufficient to understand the sense and appreciate the aesthetic value of motifs designed solely for the pleasure oftheeyes. Nothing is more simple than to classify these Ornaments into different categories, according as they are borrowed from the fauna, flora, or the architec- ture, either local or foreign. Our archaeological knowledge will not need to be very extensive in order to enable us torecognizethe Iranian origin of acertain number ofthem, lions or winged griffins, bell-shaped capitals sunnounted by two animals set back to back, honey-suckle palmettes, merlons, serrated ornamentation, etc. We shall find, on the contrary, a smack of the Indian soil in the balustrade Ornaments, in the horse-shoe arches, in the garlands of lotuses, or even in the elephants so ingeniously sketched according to nature. But neither these identifications, which are within the reach of children, nor those more learned distinctions teil us anything whatever concerning the scenes any more than concerning the idols to which after all these decorations only serve as a framework. From the first moment that we find ourselves in the presence of our fellow-creatures the problem of iden- 70 EASTERN GATE OF SÄ.NCH1 tification becomes infinitely more complicated. Even as re- gards isolated persons we cannot content ourselves, as in the case of animals, with a simple designation of species. We must at least discern their real nature, whether human or divine; next, try to determine their social rank on earth or in heaven; then finally, if possible, assign a proper name to each. It is a great deal to ask. Certainly we have very little difficulty in recognizing in a frequent feminine figure, seated on a lotus and copiously doused by two elephants, the prototype of the modern representations of £ri, the Hindu Goddess of Fortune ( l ). On theotherhand, we should scarcely have known what to say concerning the beautiful ladies who connect the jamb with the first lintel, if it were not that we find them again on the Barhut pillars. They have retained, here as there, in addition to their opulent charms and somewhat scanty costume, their eminently plastic pose, and they continue, as is written, «to bend their willow-forms like a bow » and « to lean, holding a mango-bough in full flower, displaying their bosoms like golden jars » QBuddhacarita, II, 52 and IV, 35, trans. Cowell). But there, in addition to what we have here, they bear also a little label which teaches us to see in them, instead of simple bayaderes, divinities, of an inferior order, it is true, belonging to those whom we should call « fairies ». At the same time, in the lay persons (1) See below, Calakgue, §40. This resemblance does not at all prove that we have already to do with the goddess Qri. The frequency of this figure at Sänchi, where it recurs as many as 9 times (see above, p. 18, n. 1), the manner of its juxtaposition to the Bodhi-tree, the Wheel of the Law, and the Stupa of the Parinirväna suggest, on the contrary, that we are dealing with a symbolical representation of the Nativity, when the two Ndgas (here elephants; see below, p. 109), simultaneously bathed the mother and the unseen child. Accordingly, this scene should have been cited and dis- cussed above, p. 20, had we not preferred to neglect for the moment s hypothesis still awaiting verification. EASTERN GATE OF SÄNCH 1 71 who, upright at the foot of the jambs, reveal to us fortheir part the masculine fashions of Central India in the centu- ries immediately precedingour era(pl. VIII, 2), welearnto recognize demi-gods and genii, guardians of the four entran- ces to the sanctuary, as also of the four Cardinal points (’). Elsewhere, as we have said, numerical considerations may sometimes point out the way of Interpretation. Let us take the right (or north) jamb of the eastern gate. Its fa<;ade is divided into panels, in each of which a god, if we may judge by his attributes, is seen seated, like an Indian king, in the midst of his court. Each of these compositions taken by itself teils us absolutely nothing : but, if we set aside for a while the last terrace, we ascertain that there are six of these compartments... This number alone is a flash of light; and Prof. A. Grünwedel needed nothing further to lead him to conjecture with infinite probability that here we see, arranged one above another on this pillar, the first six stories of the 27-storied paradise of Bud- dhism, — the only ones, moreover, which belong to the domain of sensual pleasures and consequently to that of our senses. It is with difficulty that we are able to discern also, on the balcony of the highest terrace, hall-length figures of the Gods in the heaven of Brahma, who belong to already another sphere; one Step higher, the superior divinities, like Dante’s souls in paradise who have become pure lights, escape by definition the scope of the plastic arts. The identification justifies itself, then, admirably, and it is confirmed even by the uniformity and banality of the scenes : for we know very well that, if the torments °f hell are usually very varied, there is, according to the (0 See below, Catahoue , § i b and 9 a, and et. Cunningham, Barhut , Pl. XXI-XXIII, 72 EASTERX GATE OF SÄNCH1 representations which have been attempted, nothing more monotonous than the happiness of the heavens. However, the hypothesis becomes quite convincing only after a com- parison with inscribed pictures of the paradise of the Thirty- three Gods at Barhut ('). One other example is from this point ot view still more characteristic. On the posterior frontal of this same gate (pl. VII, 2) is figured a row of vacant thrones under trees, between human and divine worshippers. They were coun- ted. There are seven of them : and thereupon an expert Student ofBuddhism, the Rev. S. Beal, had not been long in rediscovering in the legend of the Master seven miraculous trees : unfortunately it would be easy to enumerate still more of them. The analogy of certain series in Gan- dhära or at Ajantä would to-day furnish a much more satisfactory explanation by suggesting that it was a symbolical manner of representing the seven traditional Buddhas of our reon, the last being Qäkya-Muni. But you perceive that this conjecture would remain sus- pended literally in the air... Well, the inscribed bas-reliefs of Barhut have made it a certainty. In fact, they show us in succession all these same trees, of easily recognizable species, above these same seats of stone, between these same worshippers; but in this case each of them bears as on a label the name of the Buddha whose memory it evokes; and thus we cati no longer doubt that the intention of the old image-makers was indeed to represent the seven Enlightened Ones of the past by the seven trees under which they sat in order to attain to enlightenment (*). (1) See below, Catalogue, § 6 , and cf. Cunningham, Barhut, pl. XVI, 1, and XVII, 1, and Fergusson, Tree and Serpent Worshtp, pl. XXX, 1. (2) See below, Catalogue, § 10 b, and cf. Cunningham, ibid., pl. XXIX- XXXand Fergusson, ibid., pl. IX and Xa (medial lintel of the north gate)- EASTERN GATE OF SÄNCHi 73 You perceive already, and we may resume in a single sentence, the immediate consequences of tliis important observation. Following ahvavs the same trail, we shall learn to recognize after the symbolism of the tree, which betokens Buddha’s attainment of Sambodhi, that of the wheel, which signifies his preaching, andfinally that ofthe stüpa or tumulus, which isthe emblem of his Parinirväna. A comparison with the stelre on which the old school of Amarävati in Southern India was pleased to group the representations of the « four great miracles » will finally settle our ideas on all these points At the same time we shall not only have identified roughly agood half ofthe Sänchi bas-reliefs; we shall moreover be sufficiently fami- liarized with the secrets of the Studio to be able to approach with some chance of success the Interpretation of the remainder of the works. IV 1 he Legendary Scenes. — Kindly bethink yourselves that in fact the Acquisition of Omniscience, the First Sermon and the Final Deccase are, with the Nativity or the Voca- tion, the four chief episodes of the Buddhist legend. Now it is scarcelv necessary to say that all the scenes at Sänchi are dedicated solely to the illustration of this legend. In their chronological order they will be divided naturally into three categories, according as their sub- ject is borrowed from the previous lives, from the last üfe^ or from times subsequent to the definitive death of the Blessed One. CO See above, pl. II. 74 EASTERN GATE OF SÄNCH1 To begin with the past rebirths, it is sufficiently well known that these jätakas, as the Indians call them, are the favourite subjects of the ancient sculptors of Barhut (*) : and this time also we could not put ourselves to a better school to learn to read these riddles in stone. For we must constantly bear in mind that all these bas-reliefs are what our illustrators call « stories without words » : only, insteadof depictingthesuccessiveepisodes in aseries ofdis- tinct pictures, the old Indian masters, like those of our Middle Ages, did not shrink from placing the incidents in juxta- position or repeating the characters within one and the same panel. Once we are aware of this procedure, it is a mere pastime to explain their works and to follow the edifiying thread of the story through the appar- ent disorder of the actors and under the accumulation of genre details wherewith they like to crowd the subject. Let us add that the pastime is all the more attractive as, in spite of certain failings in technical skill, we cannot but admire the natural gifts of our sculptors (*). In the scenes of the last life of the Master we shall, of course,findemployed the samemethod ofcomposition. But there will be added to itanother convention, a most unex- pected one, and one capable of completely baffling our researches, were it not that we have already been made aware of it; or rather, to employ a better expression, it is (1) See above, Essay II. (2 ) We have not noticed on the eastern gate any specimen of jätaka ; but, in order that it may not be thought that they were excluded from the reper- tory of Sänchi, let us point out those of the elephant Saddanta on the posterior face of the middle lintel of the Southern gate (Fergüsson, pl. VIII), of the rishi Ekagringa, recognizable at once by his one frontal horn, and of prince Vigvantara on the lower lintel of the northern gate (Fergüsson, pl. Xl-Xa and XXIV, 3), of the Mahäkapi and vyäma on the Southern jarab of the Western gate (Fergüsson, pl. XVIII-XIX and XXXIV). EASTERN GATE OF SÄNCH1 75 not that some element comes into increase the pictorialcom- plication of the scene; it is, on the contrary, something which is wanting in it, and that something is nothing less than the figure of the principal hero. In all these illustra- tions of the biography of Buddha we shall find everything that the author desires, except Buddha himself. It is already a good number of years since the inscribed bas- reliefs of Barhut, by informing us that a certain worshipper, on his knees before a vacant throne merely surmounted by a parasol or marked by a Symbol, is in the act of « ador- ing the Blessed One », have placed beyond douht this invariable and surprisingabstenance. The Sänchi sculptures, which on the whole are better preserved, teil us more on this point than do the ruins of Barhut. From these latter we already knew that the ancient school of Central India had not at its disposal a type of the perfect Buddha : the facade of the middle lintel of our eastern gate, which representsthe « Great Departure of the Bodhisattva » (pl. X, i), proves to us, in its turn, that it refrained no less rigorously from figuring the Predestined even before the Sambodhi , when it would have been so simple and so easy to lend him the usual features of Viijvantara or some other « crown prince ». We have here a new fact and one of prime im- portance in the limited sphere of Buddhist archteology. To the list of conventional representations of the Buddha by a throne of stone, the imprint of two feet, a wheel or some other emblem, we must now add the no less stränge representation of the Bodhisattva by a horse without a rider nnder an honorific parasol (‘). (i) See below, Catalogue, § 11 a\ cf. likewise, Cunningham, Barhut, pl- XX, i,and Fergusson, Tree andSerpent Worship, Amarävati, pl. XCVI, 3> etc. These are precisely the facts of which we have sought in our first essay to explain the origin and significance. 76 EASTERN GATE OF SÄNCHl It is, however, episodes borrowed from the second part of the last existence of the Master that form| the bulk of the legendary scenes of Sänchi. The native artists did not, in fact, resign themselves to reproducing solely and always thesame great miracles, symbolized by the tree, the wheel or the stiipct : they have fulfilled their undertaking to illus- trate in detail the career of Buddha without figuring him- As if this prime difficulty were not enough,they imposed upon themselves a further one, which has not up to now been sufficiently emphasized ; \ve mean the law to which they submitted of not bringing on to the scene any among the disciples but laymen or any among the monks but here- tics prior to their conversion. Thus they deliberately pro- posed to make us spectators of the Master’s work, which consists essentially in the foundation of a monastic order, not only without our seeing the founder, but even without our catching a glimpse of a single Buddhist monk. When we obscrve the ingenuity which they have displayed in the accomplishment of this unpromising programme, we can- not too much regret the narrow limits within which they have restricted themselves. The eastern gate, to speak only of this one, does not limit itself to showing us typical speci- mens of this art, at once so natural and so distorted. The pan- els ofthe Southern jamb supply us in addition with a charac- teristic example of the manner in which, as we have indica- ted, they explain by their propinquity each another. On the interior face (pl. IX, i) Beal had already recognized, and verified more orless satisfactorily in detail, three distinct phases of the conversion of the thousand Brahmanic ancho- rites, disciples of the three brothers Kä^yapa. Prof. Grünwedel has included in the same series of wonders the picture of the inundation, which occupies the centre of the front face. Henceforth we believe it impossible not to conclude this EASTERN GATE OF SANCH1 77 series, in accordance with a fixed tradition, by recognizing in the king just below, who is leaving his Capital to pay a visit to theBlessedOne, Bimbisära,thefamous sovereign of theneighbouring town ofRajagriha(Rajgir) and thefaithful friend of the Master. There remains now at the top of this same face a representation of the Sambodhi : if we reflect thatthe site of this miracle, namely Bodh-Gayä, is likewise very near to Uruvilvä (Urei), where all the episodes of the conversion of the Käfyapas take place, we shall be at lastsuccessful in penetrating the really very simple plan of the artist : whether on his own initiative, or in conse- quence of the express command of thebanker Nägapiya, his Intention was evidently to group on the same jamb legen- dary events localized in the same districtof the country cf Magadha ( l ). However well the Indian school proper may have been served in its ungrateful entreprise by the monotonous character of this perpetual course of visits and preaching, °f conversions and offerings, which forms the career of Buddha, it is self-evident that its System of composition a ccommodated itselfinfinitely betterto subjects subsequent to the Parinirväna, the only ones in which the absence of the Master’s figure became quite plausible. If its regulär development had not been very soon interrupted by the a doption of the Indo-Greek type of Buddha, which came fr°m the north-west of India, it would probably have been ied by the natural course of things to assign a growing trnportance to this sort of historical pictures, side by side with the pictures of piety. Therefore, we do not hesi- (i) See below, Catalogue, % 8 et also the tntenor face of the no - thern pillar of the same gate is consecrated to Kaptlavastu (Cat. Jj 7 ), Ae f Iont f ace 0 f the eastern pillar of the northern gate to the Jetavana of Crävasti (Fergosson, pl. Xand XI), etc. 6 7§ EASTERN GATE OF SÄNCHl täte to recognize at once a few attempts of this kind at Sänchi, notably among the bas-reliefs which are freely dis- played over the whole width of the lintels. It is scarcely necessary to state that these scenes are not less legendary in fact, or less edifying in intention, than the others. We shall recall, first of all, on the Southern gate that vivid represen- tation of the famous war of the relics, which by an ironical return of the things of this world came near to being preci- pitated by the death of the Apostle of Benevolence. We know that fortunately it was averted(‘): the « Seven before Ku^inagara » at last obtained from the inhabitants of the town a portion of the ashes of the Blessed One; and eachof these eight co-sharers, keeping his portion or carrying itin triumph to his native land, built a sttipa in its honour. It was these eight original deposits — or rather seven of them — thattowards the middle of the third Century B. C. the famous A^oka, piously sacrilegious, violated, with thesoleaimof distributingtheircontents among theinnum- erable Buddhist sanctuaries which were then beginning to be scattered all over India. As to the eighth, that of Räma- grama, it seems to have been already lost in the jungle; and a well-known tradition (although not known to be so ancient) will have it that in regard thereto the royal pilgrim was confronted by the courteous, but definite refusal of the Nägas, who were its guardians. Now such, surely, is the spectacle offered to us, a Century after the event, by the (i) See Fergüsson, pl. VII et XXXVIII (and comp, western gate, ibid., pl. XVIII et XXXVIII, 2) : this scene was originally carved on the face of the lower lintel, and such is indeed the position assigned to it by the drawing of CoLE,reproduced by Fergüsson; but in the restoration this lintel and the higher one were replaccd back to front. — It was the same with the three lintels of the western gate : on the other hand Cole had in his drawing inverted the order of the first and the third. EASTERN GATE OF SÄNCHi 79 central lintel of this very Southern gate (‘). A hundred years are amply sufficient, especially in India, to create a complete cycle oflegends. Reflect, on the other hand, that at a few paces from the future site of the gate A?oka had already caused his famous« edicts » to beengraved upon a column. According to all probability the erection of this column was Contemporary with the building of the stüpa, which may very well be one of the « 84.000 » reli- gious foundations ascribedto the devout emperor. Finally, we have reasons. for thinking that the latter had remain- ed a kind of local hero in the district •: at least it is in the immediate neighbourhood of Sänchi that the Mahä- vamsa places the romance of his youth with the beautiful daughter of a rieh citizen of Besnagar. All this may help us to understand that two other pseudo-historic scenes °n our eastern gate may in the same way be borrowed from his cycle. The one on the reverse side of the lower lintel (pl. VII, 2) must have some connection with the Rämagräma stüpa, if it is not simply another Version of the legend which we have just cited. As for the other on the front of the same block, we cannot help believing that the solemn procession to the Bodhi tree (pl. X, 2) is the figured echo, if it is not the direct illustration, of a passage ln the Afokavadätia (“). V If at the point at which we have now arrived we cast a general glance over the gate which is the particular object of (1) FUkgusson, pl. VII; for the tradition compare Divyävadäna, p. 380; Fa-hian, ch. xxm, and Hiuan-tsang, xi, 3 d Kingdom. (2) See below, Calalogut , § 12 a 9 5 PL X, i : » 75. US-7 PL X, 2 : » 79- 108-9 b^cKKj'no ■jr.'igojoil'j 2'Jh.Iq ll’J i wri s.u \y\Kr}, < i .H .?/ 7 hc, Litii. . i.;/.n*,u. •j'j '{'• üb i-pöi ■o r . t.o THE GREAT STÜPA AT SÄNCHi PL. VII GENERAL VIEW, TAKEN FROM THE EAST 'Ultra $ _ v ,^Ri} limT- M5k: ,-TJ» 2.— BACK VIEW OF LINTELS OF EASTERN GATE rmmi SSM Ir tv: : 'i^ 'tcecctc . ?#«*■• jhi mr THE GREAT STÜPA AT SÄNCHI PL. VIII m iiki EASTERN GATE 2. DIVINE GUARDIAN AT ENTRANCE (FRONT VIEW) (INTERIOR FACE OF LEFT JAMB) The eastern gate of sänchi PL. IX .tTRIF n r• ^ '?”s4£7 r ‘ i X w&m T.i« .* .-*'//1 Mä SSL** THE EASTERN GATE OF SÄNCHI PL. X THE VOGATION, OR GREAT DEPARTURE (FRONT VIEW OF MIDDLE LINTEL) i i 2. A PROGESSION TO THE BODHI-TREE (FRONT VIEW OF LOWER LINTEL) !•*?*•■ »ff'- :ri.««*.* ,-* , 5 > f i W-&. *5*V t «J '.8»3V* iiäfC?' ^'ÄH f^slq FVw rf--Jw- ' •?■ :i;*. :*&;*.-ar- :*£'•*§* ^•V. 2ii£ The Greek Origin of the Image of Buddha One of the advantages of the Mus£e Guimet most appreciated by its Orientalist lecturers is that they are free to dispense with the oratorical precautions which they must take everywhere eise. Generally, wherever they venture to open their mouths, they believe themselves obliged to begin by asking pardon of their auditors for the great liberty which they take in speaking on subjects so far removed from their usual occupations and for drawing them into surroundings so different from those in which they are accustomed to move. Such a formality would in this case be entirely superfluous. You could not but be aware of the fact that on Crossing the threshold of this Museum you would immediately find yourself trans- ported from Europe to Asia, and you would hardly expect me to apologize for speaking of Buddha in the home of Buddha. For, if he is not the sole inhabitant of this hospi- table house, haven of all exotic manifestations of reli- gious art, 1 dare at least to say that he is its principal tenant. -1 o whatever gallery your Steps may lead you, be it conse- crated to India or to China, to Indo-China or to Tibet, to Japan or to Java, him you will never fall to meet again and a gain, in room after room, with the dreamy look of his half- c losed eyes and his perpetual smile, at once sympathizing and disillusionized.Ifthe distraction ofyourgaze, wandering C 1 ) Lecture at the Mustie Guimet (ßibliotheque de Vulgarisation du Museo. Guimet, vol. XXXVIII). 112 GREEK ORIGIN OF THE BUDDHA TYPE from image to image, does not too much dissipate your attention, and if your minds succeed by degrees in disregarding the diversity of the dimensions and the variety of the materials, you will notbelong innoticingthat always and everywhere, minute or gigantic, carved in wood, cut in stone, modelled in clay, cast or beaten in metal, he continues to be astonish- ingly like himself. Soon, by dint of verifying the justness of this first Observation, you will arrive at the reflexion that so great an uniformity supposes, at the origin of all these idols, the existence of a common prototype, from which they will have been more or less remotely descended. And thus in the end you are inevitably confronted by the question which I have to-day set myself the task of answer- ing. If it shall appear that the reply brings us back straight- way and in a rather unexpected manner towards the familiär horizons of our classic antiquity, well! that will simply be one more element of interest. But before interrogating the images of Buddha concern- ing their more distant origins, it is well to define exactly what we mean by the name. Europeans commonly make the strängest abuse of it. How many times have I not heard — and usually on the most charming lips — the very elementary principles of Buddhist iconography out- raged, and no matter what Statuette, Chinese, Tibetan, or Japanese, however monstrous it might be, thought- lessly designated by the name which ought to be reserved for Qäkyamuni and his peers! What would you think of an Asiatic who should designate cn bloc, by the one name of « Christ », not only Our Lord, God the Father, the Holy Ghost, and the Blessed Virgin, but also all the angels, all the saints, and even all the devils of Christianity? After having first laughed, you would soon cry out at the sacri- lege : and yet that is what we calmly do every day by lump- GREEK ORIGIN OF THE BUDDHA TYPE iij ing together under the name of the one Buddha all the inhabitants of the Buddhist heavens and even hells. There- fore, let me implore you, once for all — especially the ladies — no more thus to profane the name of the Blessed One by applying it indifferently at one time to savage or even obscene demons, at another to extravagant divinities, bristling with manifold heads and arms, and at another to simple monks. In strictness, the title of « Illuminated » — for such is very nearlythe equivalent of « Buddha » — ought to be re- served for a personage whom, for my part, I should not hesitate to regard as historic, for that scion of the noble family of the £akyas, who was born in the north of India, at the foot of the central Himälaya, towards the middle of the VI th Century before our era; who about his thirtieth year gave up his possessions, his parents, his wife, his child, in order to embrace the wandering life of a mendi- cant monk; who, after six years of vain study and austerities, finally at the foot of the ever-green fig-tree of Bodh-Gayä disco'vered the secret of liberating human beings from the evils of existence; who during more than forty years preached in the middle portion of the basin of the Ganges Salvation by the suppression of desire, the root of all suffer- ing; who died and was cremated; whose ashes, regarded as holy relics, were distributed to the four quarters of India and deposited under vast tumuli, where we still find them to-day ; whose image, finally, is still enthroned above theflower-adorned altars, mid clouds of incenseand niurmurs of prayers, in all the pagodas of the Far East. And, doubtless, this effigy served in its turn as amodelfor those of the mythical predecessors, or of the transcendent hypostases, which Indian imagination was not longin creat- ing for him in unlimited numbers, through infinite H4 GREEK ORIGIN OF THE BUDDHA TYPE time and space, in the depths of our terrestrial past as well as in the abysses where at this moment move all the other universes. But such is the servile fidelity of these copies that from the iconographic point of view one may say : « There is no Buddha but Buddha ». Now the essential character of this figure is precisely that always and everywhere, through all the differences of gesture and pose, it assumes only one form, simplyand purely human. This is the most important fact to be borne in mind. As for the particularsigns which prevent our ever failing to recognize the type, the first statue or photograph to your hand will familiarize you with them. I Here then we are agreed : together we seek the origin of the image of the Indian mendicant who, by the prestige of his intelligence, his goodness and, perhaps, also of his personal beauty, exercized over his contemporaries an influence capable of forming a basis for one of the three great religions of the world, that which from his epithet we call Buddhism. At the first view the problem does not seem so very complicated. Granted that all these represen- tations seem to descend from a common prototype, the question resolves itself into discovering the place, time, and occasion of the first appearance of this type. In other words, it will be necessary, but sufficient, to determine which are the most ancient known images of Buddha. Theoretically, nothing is more simple; in practice we quickly perceive that the thing is sooner said than done. It is in Ceylon, the first Buddhist stage on the maritime high road of Asia, that the European usually finds himself GREEK ORIGIN OF THE BUDDHA TYPE 115 for the first time in the presence of veritable idols of the Blessed One. Most often he restricts himself to an excur- sion, along red roads losing themselves in the distance under a slowly diminishing arch of green palmeries, to the singu- larly modernized temple of Kelani, a little to the north of Colombo. But, even if he pushed on as far as the ancient ruined towns of the interior, he would be no more success- ful in finding in their old statues the original type which we are seeking. With still greaterreason would he renounce the idea of encountering it in the other terrestrial paradise, that of the austral hemisphere; for the not less luxuriant island of Java was also only an Indian colony, and, doubtless, it became so later than did Ceylon. The hun- dreds of Buddhas who have given a name to Boro-Budur are attributed only to the IX th Century of our era. The even more recent character of the majority of the idols which are still venerated in Cambodia, Siam and Burmah shows only too clearly through their tinsel and their gild— ing. The most ancient Lamaic images could hardly be anterior to the official proclamation of Buddhism in Tibet towards the year 632. In Japan everyone will teil you that the figure of the Master was not introduced there until the Vl* h Century, and that it came from China through the inter- mediacy of Corea. Nor do the most ancient Chinese images known to us, those of the grottoes of Long-Men or of Ta- t’ong-fu, which M. Chavannes has just made known by reproductions, go back beyond the IV lh Century ('). Finally, the last archseological missions in Central Asia have succeeded in proving, as had already been supposed, that their model came from India by the two routes which (1) E. Chavannes, Mission arcbeologique dans la Chine seplenirionale, Paris, 1909. ii6 GREEK ORIGIN OF THE BUDDHA TYPE on the north and the south skirt the desert of Turkes- tan ('). Thus clearly were we directed in advance to seek the plastic origins of Buddha in the very places which saw the beginning of his doctrine. And, were it not of inte- rest to prove the diffusion and permanence of the type through the whole of eastern Asia, we might have spared ourselves this vast circuit. The point clearly marked for the serious commencement of our quest is the country of Magadha, otherwise that province of Behar which the latest imperial proclamation of Delhi has justofficially detach- ed from Bengal. But the numerous statues in black bas- alt, which we there find — to begin with that which has been set up over the altar of the temple of Bodh-Gayä, at the very spot where the Illuminated received his Illumination —, go back for the most part only to the dynasty of the Palas, which was overthrown by the Musalmans in the XII th Century of our era. The excavations of Särnäth, the site of the First Preaching, in the northern suburb of Benares, have furnished us with more ancient examples, carved in a grey sandstone of an uniform tint, which mark atthe timeof the Gupta Kings (IV"‘ and V lh centuries a. d.) a kind of renaissance of Indian art. More to the north-west the ruins of Mathurä, far to the south-west those of Ama- rävati have supplied us with still older ones, which the mention on the former of the Indo-Scyths, on the second of the Ändhras carry as far back as the Il nd Century of our era. But whether carved in the yellow-spotted red sandstone of (i) See, for example, in Grünwedel, Bericht über archäologische Arbeiten in Idikutschari und Umgebung im Winter 1902-1903 (Munich, 1906), pl. IV, fig. 1, a specimen from Turfan, and in M. A. Stein, Ancient Khotan, pl. LXXXII, 2, another example from the environs of Khotan. GREEK ORIGIN OF THE BUDDHA TYPE ii7 Mathurä or in the white marble of Amarävati, they are as Hke as brothers, and everyone will agree that they are des- cended from a common ancestor of blue slate and native to the north-western corner of India. Thus, following our thread, we have already remounted in the scale of years nearly twenty out of the twenty five centuries which separate us from the time of Buddha. The result is appreciable, and can only encourage us to conti- nue. But just at this moment the thread which guided us Step by step through the chaos of Buddhist art breaks off sharp in our hands. While statues of the Master, dated with certainty from the first Century after, if not before, Christ, are tobe found abundantly in the Upper Panjäb —as is proved by the collections of the provincial Capital (pl. XI, 1) — we vainly seek their archetype in the still older mo- numents of central India, prior to the second Century of our era. One significant fact robs us even of all hope of ever finding it by means of some excavation either better carried out or more successful. While on all the bas-reliefs of the Panjäb the Blessed One is represented Standing in the middle of the panel, on thebalustrades or the gates of Barhut orof Sänchi he is totally absent even from the scenes of his own biography. This fact is too well known to be again dwelt upon, especially as we have already made an experimental verification of it (‘). All that I wish to insist upon to-day is that the oldest known Buddhas are those which we have encountered in the « House of Marvels », as the natives call the museum of Lahore. To complete the geo- graphical part of our quest, it remains only to find out exactly whence these Buddhas come. The former keeper — whom many of us know from the fine portrait drawn by (1) See above, pp. 4-5 and 74-5. n8 GREEK ORIGIN OF THE BUDDHA TYPE the filial piety of Rudyard Kipling at the beginning of « Kim » — is no longer there to teil us; \ve regret to have heard last year of his death, and moreover he retired long ago. But his successor will answer you that all these car- vings came originally from the district of Peshawar, on the right bank of the Indus, at its confluence with the Kabul- Rüd... And, doubtless, your first astonishment will be that, after having vainly sought not only throughout the whole of still Buddhist Asia, but in the very places which saw the birth ofBuddhism, the cradle ofthe images ofthe founder, we have finally discoveredit in a Musalman coun- try and on the Western confines of India. What this district is at present I would only too willingly stop to describe to you; fori have trodden itin every direc- tion during happy months of archaeological campaigning. Gandhära — for such was its Sanskrit name — shows us after all only a vast, gently undulating plain, bristling in places with rugged hills, and three parts encircled by a beit of fawn-coloured orbluish mountains, which nearly every- where limit the horizon. But the opening left by them on the south-east over the Indus is the great gate of India; and yt to the west the winding Khyber pass remains the principal route of communication between the peninsula and the Asiatic continent; and the towns which formerly guarded this ancient route of invading armies and merchant Caravans were Purushapura (now Peshawar); Pushkarävati, the Peukelaotis of the Greeks; (lalätura, the natal town of Pänini, the great legislator of Sanskrit grammar; Udabhän- da (now Und), where the great river was passed, in winter by a ford, in summer by a ferry, and whence in three days one reached Takshafilä, the Taxilä of the histo- rians of Alexander... And immediately you feel how in this country, which one might call doubly classic, memories naaAiito GREEK ORIGIN OF THE BUDDHA TYPE 119 associated with the two antiquities, Hellenic and Indian, arise from the ground at each Step. Even if history had not preserved for us any remembrance of the memorable encounter between the two civilizations, the mute wit- nesses instone, which we have come purposely to interrog- ate, would be sufficient to establish it. To cut as short as possible ('), let me lead you straight to the centre of the country, into the littlegarrison town of Hoti-Mardän : and there, at the hospitable messofthe regiment of the Guides, I will show you, leaning against the wall of the dining- room and no longer inhaling any incense but the smoke of the cigars, the most beautiful, and probably also the most ancient, of the Buddhas which it has everbeen grant- ed to me to encounter (pl. XI, 2). Look at it at leisure. Without doubt you will appreciate its dreamy, and even somewhat effeminate, beauty; but at the same time you cannot fail to be struck by its Hellenic character. That this is a Statue of Buddha there is not the least doubt: all the special signs of which I was speaking a short time ago bear witness to its identity. Is it neces- sary to make you lay your fingers upon that ample monastic robe, that pretended bump of wisdom on the crown of the head, that mole between the eyebrows, that lobe of the ear distended by the wearing of heavy earrings, and left bare because of the total renunciation of worldly adornments? These are all traits which we might have anticipated from the perusal of the sacred texts. But, if it is indeed a Buddha, it (1) Here, of course, we can only note the principal points. Those who are anxious for details concerning the country, its archaeological sites, and the results of the excavations, will pardon us if we refer themto our works Sur la frontiire indo-afghane (Paris, 1901), La Geographie ancienne du Gan- dhära (B. E. F. E-O, I, 1901), L’Art greco-bouddhique du Gandbära (Paris, ^os-xg^). 120 GREEK ORIGIN OF THE BUDDHA TYPE is no less evidently not an Indian work. Your European eyes have in this case no need of the help of any Indianist, in order to appreciate with full knowledge the orb of the nimbus, the waves of the hair, the straightness of the pro- file, the classical shape of the eyes, the sinuous bow of the mouth, the supple and hollow folds of the draperies. All these technical details, and still more perhaps the harmony of the whole, indicate in a material, palpable and striking manner the hand of an artist from some Greek Studio. If the material proofs of the attribution constitute what I should be prepared to call the native contribution, neitherwill youhesitateto ascribeto an Occidental influence the formal beauty of the work. Tlius the statue of Mardän, with all its congeners, appears to us as a kind of compro- mise, a hybrid work, which would not in any language have a name, had not the no less heteroclite term of « Greco-Buddhist» been fortlnvith invented for it. II Such is the — I must confess unexpected — result of our researches on the spot. It is only in the country which from our point of view we might quite correctly call the Vestibüle of India, that we finally discover the archetype of Buddha; and when at last we find it, it is to acknow- ledge that its appearance is at the least as much Greek as Indian. The fact is, doubtless, sufficiently surprising to call for some commentary. What historical circumstances can have rendered possible, and even spontaneously engendered, this creation of the Indo-Greek type of Buddha? What attracts us most in the question is, I will warrant, how the Hellenic influence could thus have reached as far as the GREEK ORIGIN OF THE BUDDHA TYPE 121 banks ofthe Indus. Allow me to call your attention to the fact that Gandhärais scarcely further, as the crow flies, from the mouth of the Hellenized Euphrates than from that of the Buddhist Ganges. In reality the problem has two faces, like the images which we have to explain. To account for the birth of such a statue, it is necessary to justify the pene- tration not only of Greek Art, but also of the Buddhist reli- gion, into the country which was to be the theatre of their prolific union. And it is indeed with the latter that it will be best to undertake the historical part of our quest. At the present time not only is this unfortunate Gan- dhära, which had always so much to suffer from its Situation on the high road of the conquerors of Asia, no longer Buddhist; it has become more than half Afghan in race, Iranian in language, and withal Musalman. It is a curious fact that, according to Strabo, at the time of the rüde and passing conquest of Alexander, the « Gandaritis » did not form a part of India, which at that time commenced only at the Indus. Seleukos, after his fruitless attempt at inva- sion in 305 before our era, is said to have ceded it by treaty, together with the hand of his daughter, in ex- changefor 500 elephants, to the first historical emperor of India, that Candragupta whom the Greek historians call Sandrakottos. Fifty years later this district still formed part of the domains of the latter’s grandson, the famous A90- ka; and he caused to be engraved on a huge rock, half-way up a hill near the present village of Shahbäz-Garhi (pl. XII, 1), the pious edicts in which he recom'mended to his peo- ple the practice of all the virtues, beginning with kindness to animals. From the fifth of these edicts it quite clearly appears that for him Gandhära was a frontier country, still to be evangelized. We know, onthe other hand, thezeal of this « Constantine of Buddhism » for the propagation of the 122 GREEK ORIGIN OF THE BUDDHA TYPE Good Law. Then again, according to the Singhalese chro- nicle, th e Mahävatnsa, it was precisely during his reign that the apostle Madhyäntika converted Gandhära as well as Kashmir. Thus the religion of Buddha would have taken more than twohundred years to spread from Magadha as far asthefrontiers of northern India. We seeno reasonfor con- testing the authenticity of a tradition in itself so probable. Besides, whatever may be the exact date of the introduc- tion of Buddhism into Gandhära, it must there have been specially successful. We shall end by finding there, duly acclimatized and deeply rooted, a quantity oflegends which the missionaries had brought with them from the low country. Some did not hesitate to bring Buddha himself onthe scene. It was, they said, the Master in person, who had overcome the terrible Näga of the Swät river, and had limited the disastrous inundations, whence this aquatic genius derives all his subsistence, to one in every twelve years. In the same way it was no longer at Räjagriha, but at one stage to the north-west of Pushkarävati, that the BlessedOne is now supposedto have converted the insati- able ogress of Smallpox. Thanks to the want of ortho- doxy on the part of mothers, when the health of their chil- dren is in question, this last Superstition has in the minds of the present inhabitants of the country almost alone survived the total wreck of Buddhism. A small quantity of earth from a certain tumulus, placed in the tavii , or amulet- case, usually suspended round the neck of the new-born, is still considered an infallible preservative against the terrible infantile epidemic; and it is owing to this curious property, joined to the topographical information of Hiuan-tsang, that I was able to recognize the traditional site of this miracle. However, it was to be feared that these narratives of a GREEK ORIGIN OF THE BUDDHA TYPE 123 personal Intervention of the historic Buddha in Gandhära might justly meet with the same incredulity as those which, in my native province,begin with the words : « Atthat time, our Lord Jesus Christ was travelling in Brittany... » For the purpose of localization in the country they preferred, it seems, to fall back upon the numerous previouslives in the course of which the future Buddha attained the summit — or, as we should say to-day, established a record — in all perfections. The monks of several convents in the neigh- bourhood of Shähbäz-Garhi had, for instance, divided among themselves, by very clever adaptation to the pictur- esque accidents of the landscape, the various episodes of the romance of Vigvantara, that monomaniac of charity. Others had, so to speak, specialized either in the touching story of the young anchorite £yama, sole support of his old blind parents, or in the galant adventure of the wise Ekaqdnga, whom the seductions of a courtesan reduced to the role of beast of bürden, etc... But they did not stop there; an exceptionally holy tetrad of great stüpas, situated in Gandhara proper, or in the bordering territories, soon TOarked the place where the Sublime Being had formerly, in one existence after another, made a gift of his flesh, his eyes, his head, and his body — the first to buy back a dove from a hawk, the last to satisfy a famished tigress, and the two others with an intention whose practical utility, ifnot its edifying character, escapes us. And thus northern India came to possess, like central India, its « four great pilgri- tnages ». It is not in any way an exaggeration to say that Gandhära thus became (after Magadha) as it were a second Holy Land of Buddhism; and we see that certain Chinese Pilgrims were quite content with a visit there, without feeling the necessity of pushing as far as the basin of the Ganges. 124 GREEK ORIGIN OF THE BUDDHA TYPE Only this local prosperity of Buddhism can explain to us the number and the richness of the ancient religious foun- dations of the country. Some repose under the tu muH which dot the plains on every side, and are used by the present inhabitants as stone-quarries. Others are hidden in the folds of the mountains, or with their crumbling walls cover the sharp crest of some spur. Among the former I will name to you in particular those which underly the enormous mound of Sahri-Bahlol (pl. XIII) : though excavated longago, they still with their artistic spoils enrich the museum which has lately been established in Peshawar, as Capital of the new « North-West Frontier Province ». Among the second I will show you as a specimen the cele- brated ruinsof Takht-i-Bahai with their equally inexhausti- ble reserves(pl. XII, 2); on theplatform above theimposing retaining walls rise the dismantled chapels where once were enthroned the statues which have since taken the road to our museums, those mortuaries of dead Gods. You are free to restore them in thought with the splendour borrowed from the colours, and even from the gold, with which in former days care was taken to increase in the dazzled eyes of the faithful their appearance of life. But, above all, you must grasp the fact that in this country you literally walk on ruins, and there is scarcely a corner where a few strokes with the pick-axe will not bring to light some Buddhist bas- relief or statue. Evidently Hiuan-tsang was scarcely exag- gerating, when he estimated approximately, and in round numbers, at a thousand the number of monasteries which once constituted the Ornament, as also the sanctity, of Gandhära. If you will now reflect that this anti-chamber of India has from all times been the region most open to Western influences, moral as well as artistic, you will un- derstand the double role which it was naturally called upon GREEK ORIGIN OF THE BUDDHA TYPE 125 to play in the evolution of the religion which it had embra- ced with so much zeal. The numerous doctors whom it has produced have taken a preponderatingpartin thetrans- formation of the Buddhist egoistical « salvation » into the theory of a charity more widely active, but also of a cha- racter more metaphysical and pietistic, which its adherents adorned with the name of Mahäyäna. But the important thing for us here is not so much the abstruse depth of its theologians as the pious generosity of its donors. It was they who, according to all probability, took the initiative in utilizing for the satisfaction of their religious zeal the talent and resource of the Hellenistic artists, whom his- torical circumstances had led as far as Ariana. And thus they made their country the Creative home whence Buddhist iconography was by degrees propagated throughout the rest of India and the Far East. Of the two elements, the Greek and the Buddhist, which concurred in the production of our Gandhära statues, we comprehend then already the second. It remains to explain the intervention ofthe first. But this is a story already familiär to you, and it will be sufficient if I recall it in a few words;or rather I should like to give you an illustration and, asit were, a direct apprehension ofit, by puttingbefore your eyes the most artistic of the documents — or, if you prefer, the most documentary ofthe works of art — I mean the coins. In the first place, I shall mention only by way of remin- der Alexanders forced entrance into India in the spring ofthe year 326 before our era. We too much forget that J t was on his part a notable folly to venture during the hottest months of the year on the burning plains °f the Panjäb; that he was soon forced to retire, and that 126 GREEK ORIGIN OF THE BUDDHA TYPE his retreat across the deserts of Gedrosia (the present Be- luchistan) ended disastrously — so that this expedition into India, if only we replace the cold by the heat, the snow by the sands, was, as it were, the Russian cam- paign of the Macedonian conqueror. Much more fruitful of results was the Constitution of the Greek kingdom of Bac- tria, on the confines of the north-west of India, about 250 B. C., in open revolt against the Seleucides. The beautiful coin of Alexander, son of Philip, which you see in pl. XIV, 2, was struck not by Alexander himself, but in imitation of his by king Agathokles, whose name and titles you read on the reverse, encircling the image of Zeus. Everything in this medal is still purely Greek. Fifty years later Demetrios, son of Euthydemos, profit- ing by the break-up of the empire of the Mauryas, con- quers and annexes the whole of northern India; and immediately you see in that helmet, made from the head of an elephant, as it were a trace of the Indian Orientation of his policy (pl. XIV, 2). This latter must, be- sides, have ended by costing him his original kingdom. An- other valiant condottiere, Eukratides, rebelled in his turn, and made himself master of Bactria; so that, as Strabo teils us, there remained to Demetrios nothing more than his Indian conquests, and he was henceforward known under the name of « King ofthe Indians ». This is a Capital fact, to which I could not too strongly draw your attention. Düring a Century and more the Panjäb was thus a Greek colony, in the same way as it afterwards became Scythian, then Mogul, andfinally English. That is to say, a handful of foreigners, supported by mercenary troops, in great part recruited in the country itself, became masters there, and levied thetaxes. You may easily perceivethat this kingdom was a centre of attraction for Greek adventurers of all kinds, GREEK ORIGIN OF THE BUDDHA TYPE 127 beginning with soldiers of fortune and mountebanks, and passing by way of merchants to the artists who took upon themselves, among other tasks, that of making the superb coins to which we are indebted for the survival ofthe classically sounding names and the energetic features of those so-called « Basileis », changed into very authentic räjahs. Of all these Indo-Greek kings I will name only Menander (pl. XIV, 2), since he is known to us not merely from the narrative of Plutarch, but also from Indian texts. A curious apologetic treatise, entitled « The Questions of Milinda » and composed as a dialogue in the Platonic manner, brings before us in the town of Sägala on the one hand Hellenism, represented by Menander, the king of the Yavanas (Ionians), and on the other hand Buddhism, in the person of Nägasena, one of the pa- triarchs of the church. According to native tradition the ntonk even converted the king. However,on the reverse of his coins, Pallas Athene continues still to brandish the paternal lightning of Zeus. She does not seem in any way to care how little her image squares with the exotic sur- roundings of the language and the writing in which Menander, generalizing a usage inaugurated by his pre- decessors, is always careful to have the Greek legend of the face translated for the use of his Indian subjects. Never, in truth, were the circumstances more favourable than during his reign (between 150 and 100 B. C.) for planting the germ of the whole subsequent development of Greco-Bud- dhist art by the creation of the Indo-Greek type of Buddha. What, in fact, is that beautiful statue which I showed you just now (pl. XI, 2), but an Asiatic coin Struck in European style ? And what more simple for artists initiated into all the secrets of Hellenic art, as were the authors of 128 GREEK ORIGIN OF THE BUDDHA TYPE those magnificent medals, than to adopt for the representa- tion of the Indian Saviour the most intellectual type of their beardless Olympians? Thus we arrive quite naturally at the stränge and quaint mixture which we were analysing a short time ago, at this statue, which is a Hellenized Buddha, unless you prefer to describe it as an Indianized figure of Apollo. Thus must have been created under the industrious fingers of some Graeculus of more or less mixed descent — and perhaps, also, who knows? at the command of a Greek or an Eurasian convert to Buddhism — the earliest of the images of Buddha. Yet, since we are forced to touch upon the question of chronology, it is only, I must con- fess, in the first Century of our era, that the type of Buddha at last makes its appearance on the reverse of the coins. And certainlyhis name is still written there in Greek char- acters « Boddo ». But on the observe, instead of an elegant Greek, we perceive the figure of another invader, of a beard- ed Scythian, grotesquely accoutred in his high boots and the rigid basques of his tunic (pl. XIV, 2). His name is given in the inscription : he is the « Shah of the Shahs » Kanishka, he who was after A^oka the second great emperor of the Buddhist legend, and whom M. S. L£vi has in his turn so well surnamed the « Clovis » of northern India : for he also — eitherfrom conviction or from calculation — became converted to the religion of the country vanquished by his arms. But, just as the Frank Clovis had no part in the development of Gallo-Roman art, you may easily ima- gine that the Turk Kanishka had no direct influence on that of Indo-Greek art; and, besides, we hold now the certain proof that during his reign this art was already stereotyped, if not decadent. All the Chinese Buddhist pilgrims who troin the IV lh to GREEK ORIGIN OF THE BUDDHA TYPE 129 the X th centuries of our era visited the holy places of India agree, in fact, in testifying, that Kanishka had built by the side of his winter Capital Purushapura « the highest pagoda of the country ». Now in the course of my journey on the Indo-Afghan frontier, on the 2i 5t ofjanuary 1897, among the numeroustumuli — simple refuse of brick kilns or ves- tiges of ancient monuments — which are scattered over the flat outskirts ofPeshawar, I thoughtl recognized inone (pl. XIV, 1), by reason of its site, its form, its composition, its surroundings, finally ofa number of concordant indica- tions— notto count that secret voice of things, which soon whispers to the heart of the archaeologist —, the remains ofthe great religious foundation of Kanishka. That dusty mound, which, if in circumference it measured three hundred metres, was not more than 4 or 5 metres above the present ground surface, did not look very promising. How- ever, when the Anglo-Indian government did at last reorgan- ize its archaeological Service, Messrs. Marshall and Spooner were pleased to consider that the proposed Identification was at least worth the trouble of verification by digging. The results of the first campaign, during the cold sea- son 1907-1908, were most disappointing. Fortunately the English archaeologists were not discouraged; in March 1909 they at last determined the dimensions of the base of the sanctuary — the vastest, indeed, that has ever been dis- covered in India — and soon they were fortunate enough to unearth in the centre the famous relics of Buddha, which Chinese evidence assures us were deposited there by Kanishka himself, and which to-day Burmah is so proud of possessing. They were enclosed in a golden reliquary, about 18 centimetres high, of which you have before your eyes (pl. XV, 1) a view. All that I wish to take note of here is first, that this box does in fact bear in dotted Utters the 130 GREEK ORIGIN OF THE BUDDHA TYPE name, and in repouss£ the image, of our Kanishka, the one perfectly legible and the other a good resemblance.Now, in point of execution the reliquary already betrays signs of artistic decadence; andthis stylization is especially notable in the Buddha whom you see seated between two Standing divinities on the top of the lid. This votive documentis sufficient, then, to carry back at least a hundred years, and consequently, to the i st Century before our era, at the latest, the creation of the plastic type of the Blessed One. III Thus, then, we are on the whole well informed as to the whereandwhen,from the rencontreofthe twoinverse expan- sions, that of Hellenism towards the east consequent upon the political conquests of Alexander, and that of Buddhism towards the west by favour of the religious missions of A?oka, was born once for all the Indo-Greek type of Buddha. Our geographical and historical quest may, there- fore, be considered as ended. But we have as yet accom- plished only two-thirds of our task, and the iconographic question awaits almost in its entirety an elucidation. We have indeed from the first glance at the Museum at La- hore seen that, in Opposition to the old native school, the image of Buddha is like a trade-mark of the workshops of Gandhära. It remains to learn how it was itself manufac- tured. We are agreed that at the time of its composition the Indian material was poured into a Western mould : among all the possible results of this Operation, which one defini- tely emerged from the foundry? This we have still to analyse, at the risk of passing from one surprise to ano- ther. GREEK ORIGIN OF THE BUDDHA TYPE 131 What in fact did I teil you? Here is a creation which the experience of centuries and the exploration of Asia have taught us to regard as one of the most widespread and the most durable successes that the history of art has ever chronicled. It is proved to have been adopted with enthu- siasm by the entire Buddhist world: it was, and has remain- ed, for the faithful the sole manner of conceiving and figuring the Master... And yet we cannot hide the fact that, if from the beginning the people must have feit the attrac- tive charm of its ideal and serene beauty, it must at its first appearance have been the object of just and bitter criticisms on the part of the old Champions of orthodoxy. To-day even, if we, Buddhists or students of Buddhism, could free ourselves from long custom and create for ourselves new eyes, we should be the first to be shocked by the ambi- guous character of the Gandhära type of Buddha. For in fact, what is it that Buddhist scriptures are never tired of repeating? It is not we, it is tradition which poses for the new-born Bodhisatwa the famous dilemma : « Either thou wilt remain in the world and reign over the uni- verse; or eise thou wilt enter into religion and become a Saviourof the world ». Weall know that the second alternative was the one realized. Now what do we see here (pl. XI, 2)? This person is notaprince, for he wearsneither the costume nor the jeweis of one; but how could one niaintain that he is a real Buddhist monk, since his head is not shaven? If he were a bhikshu, he would not have retain- ed his hair : if he were a cakravartin, he would not have donned the monastic gown. A monk without tonsure or a king without jeweis, decidedly thesestränge images, from 'whichever side one approaches them, are frankly neither flesh nor fish. From the artistic point of view we have already seen that, properly speaking, they were neither i 3 2 GREEK ORIGIN OF THE BUDDHA TYPE Greek nor Indian; from the iconographic point of view we must admit that they are neither cleric norlayman, but still and always a hybrid combination of two heteroclite elements. Shall we lean over the crucible in which the formula of this new compromise was elaborated, and try to reconstit- ute from the monuments themselves how things happen- ed? Let us take the princely heir of the £äkyas (pl. XV, 2) at the critical moment when he is realizing his religious vocation. The moral crisis which has just cast him out of the world, and, as a beginning, has made him flee by night from his native town, must, in fact, betranslated occularly bya complete transformation of his exterior aspect. Now we read, and we see, that on the dawri of his escape, judging himself beyond capture, hestops and sends back horseand squire. At the same time he charges the latter to carry back to his home all his princely jeweis, including the rieh turban which encircled his long hair, gathered up in a chignon on the top of the crown. Thus he appears to us, his head bare and already in the act of changing his silken clothes, which are no longer suitable to his new state, for the coarse garment of a hunter. In all thesedetails thefigur- ed tradition conforms with a good grace to the written. There is only one point on which the Indo-Greek artists have shown themselves intractable. At that instant all the texts will have it that the Bodhisattva himself with his swordcut off his hair: but to this last exigency of Indian custom the school of Gandhärahas nevergiven its consent. Whether it represents the Master at the height of his ascetic macerations, or whether it shows him in all his splendour, at the moment when he has just attained to Illumination, his chignon continues to remain such as it was before his entrance into religion. When at last he GREEK ORIGIN OF THE BUDDHA TYPE 135 begins to convert his first disciples, there is only the more striking contrastbetween hiswavyhairandthe shorn crowns of his bhikshus : forthese latter, evidently sketched from life, wear the full tonsure, exactly like the bonzes of the present day. Accordingly, we may say that by systematically refusing in the case of the Blessed One to complete the expected transmutation of layman into monk, the Gandhära sculptors have not only put themselves in intended contra- diction to the sacred writings : they have also obstinately closed their eyes to the data supplied by the direct Observation of a number of their own clients. Visit afresh the collections, or turn over at your leisure the reproductions, of Greco-Buddhist bas-reliefs. The sole distinction between the Bodhisattva, or any other great lay person, and Buddha consists in this, that the latter appears without jeweis and draped to the neck in the monastic gown. On the other hand, the only characteristic difference between the Master and the monks of his Order lies in the privilege, which he alone enjoys, of retaining his hair. At this point the recipe for fabricating a Buddha after the mode of Gandhära presents itself spontaneously to you (pl. XVI, 1). You take the bodv of a monk, and surmount it with the head of a king (or what in India comes to the same thing, a god), after having first stripped it of turban and earrings. These are the two necessary and sufficing ingre- dients of this curious synthesis; and you divine immediately the advantages of this procedure. Were it not for the head, Konfusion with any other monk would be almost inevitable: and this simple consideration may help to explain why the ancient native school abstained from representing the disciples as well as the Master ('). On the other hand, were (1) See above, p. 76. r34 GREEK ORIGIN OF THE BUDDHA TYPE it not for the monastic cloak, you might be a little puzzled to distinguish the Perfect Buddha from the future Buddha, whenever the second is shown without a headdress, or even when the lips of the former continue to wear that little moustache which you still find on the remote Japanese images. But join together the two elements, however incongruous, a layman’s head on the body ofa cleric : and this combination will at once give you an individuality suf- ficiently marked to answer all thepractical needs of icono- graphy. The result has shown it well. But, however complex the Indo-Greek type of Buddha may be, you doubtless consider that we have examined and dissected it more than sufficiently for to-day; and you tremble to perceive the endless conclusions which we might at once draw from this analysis, however superficial and summary. First of all, it would be sufficient to prove, even if history did not so state, that this type was created as an afterthought and, let us say, de chic, by strangers more artists than theologians, more solicitous for esthetics than for orthodoxy. I would go further : Not only at the moment of its conception had the face of the Master long been blurred in the mists of the past, and all precise icono- graphic data concerning him been lost; but among the vapours of incense which the worship of posterity caused to mount towards his memory, while waiting for the latter to be materialized in his image, he had already assumed a superhuman and, as is written, a « supernatural» (lokot- tara ) character. At least, we could scarcely otherwise explain the success of that stroke of audacity whereby the school of Gandhara assigned to him from the beginning a special physionomy, derived from, and at the same time remaining at an equal distance from, that of a monk and GREEK ORIGIN OF THE BUDDHA TYPE 135 that of a god. It results, further, that this type issues from the fusion of a double ideal, that of the Greek Olympian and that of the Mahäpurusha, or Indian « Great Man », with no borrowing from living reality, if we except the detail of the distended lobe of the ears. And this would to some extent excuse the defect that many of these images are not exempt from some academic frigidity. Finally, we comprehend the reason forthe retouches which later gener- ations thought it necessary to apply, notably as concerns the hair. We can even see in how mechanical a manner through uniformly covering bandeau and chignon with the short traditional curls, their want of skill has suddenly caused to stand out on the top of the crown the boss called ushnisha , a word which formerly meant only headdress. And this is not yet all : what should I not have to teil you concerning the diffusion in India and the Far East of the idolatrous worship of Buddha, parallel to that of the Images! But reassure vourselves : sufficient for each hour tts subject, and I will not further abuse your patience. Moreover, as we remarked at the beginning, nothing is e asier than to see how much better preserved — or, if you prefer, less deformed — at all times and in all places was the face of the Blessed One than his doctrine. I shall not, therefore, insist to-day on the conquest of upper and lower Asia by this irresistible propagator of the Indo- Greek school of Gandhära. But you would notforgive me, I did not show in conclusion how this Buddhist school finds itself by its origins in contact with our Christian art. Look at these two statues (pl. XVI, 2); the one represents Christ, and the other Buddha. The one was taken from a sarcophagus from Asia Minor, and is to-day to be found in Berlin; the other comesfrom a ruined temple in Gandhära, an d is at present in Lahore. Both, with the pose of the right 136 GREEK ORIGIN OF THE BUDDHA TYPE arm similarly draped in their mantles, are direct descen- dants of a common ancestor, the beautiful Greek statue of the Lateran Museum, called the Orator, in which we have long recognized a Sophocles. lt is not to be doubted that, plastically speaking, they are cousins-german. The one is a Greco-Christian Christ; the other is a Greco-Buddhist Buddha. Both are, by the same right, a legacy left in extremis to the old world by the expiring Greek art. After this last experience it will, doubtless, seem to you proved that this figure of Buddha, which, smiling at us from the depths of the Far East, represents for us the cul- mination of what is exotic, nevertheless came originally from a Hellenistic Studio. Such, at least, is the truthto-day — I mean the conclusion arising from the documents at present known — and such, at the point at which archaeo- logical researches have arrived, will probably be the truth to-morrow. Must we be glad or sorry for this ? Facts are facts, and the wisest thing is to take them as they come. It was recently still the custom to triumph noisily over the artistic inferiority of the Indians, reduced to accepting ready made from the hands of others the concrete realiza- tion of their own religious ideal. At present, owingto aesthe- tic bias or to nationalist rancour, it is the fashion to make the school of Gandhära pay for its manifest superiority by a systematic blackening of its noblest production. We for our part refuse in this connection to share either the unjusti- fiable contempt of the old criticism for native inspiration, or the ill-disguised spite of the new against the foreign make. It is not thefatheror the mother who has formed the child; it is the father and the mother. The Indian mind has taken a part no less essential than has Greek genius in the elaboration of the model of the Monk-God. It is a case where the East and the West could have done nothing GREEK ORIGIN OF THE BUDDHA TYPE 137 without each other. It would be childish to associate our- selves, in a partizan spirit and turnabout, with the exaltation or the contempt, whether of Europe or of Asia, when so fine an opportunity offers for siluting in the Eurasian pro - totype of Buddha one ofthe most sublime creations where- with their collaboration has enriched humanity. 'fWpTf? 2 U t" 3 5 r B H Cr ^ 3 PLATE XI Cf. pp. 117-120 O C" ? rvi m C _ o as u2 trn -C bc v W ts b£i o rhe end of those works) 1/1 <#** V ■;. ?*J teäm/is« #&; - gp« i*5#....** .• 'S ,^ s Knc ; ?2-"4-1 •■/’ ;5 ? *• ^.rfwoo ,^-plate xii ( I CI .q .i'j)-- •' . , Cf. pp. 121, 123, 124. ’■ ’i .. S! -Ol 0. : ul J3JX'V uasnaoi IzqtznnQ ■ :!; ? 'f i*> •'*- jlm! sdi 1u eiiiri srh svo«i si.- '?■£? 10 ^ ,?mi :auam ;iz*' ■ .>■ ' 1 ö .fl .J}fi c:b.«i -.\ •.; i Lat 1 .g§fi •*• V .:. t JSttsJS&tüfe ., v: •> £ i <*-v^'’C ..-• •'VS&L' '<•:.*£ * ; >;•■ f_ < # *T ■•• ;." . r : - c : 4 , Is&i hj ■ ttjnt^iV.': 1 ,.C .il M .1^ .ä r. ; 'tt'iidir ■■KhjL ''^n edi 03 miiiD :tdi LrujOi t ;oriq A .11 4 ijsjoqzib i«(j :u 7, c.dj S« : ':r:. wsi« ; U I, An engraving borrowed from Sur la frontiire indo-afghane (Paris, Hachette et C le , 1901, fig. 11; cf. Tour du monde, Nov. 1899, p. 543); executed from the author’s photographs. On the left, beyond the ploughed land, is seen the villageof Shähbiz-Garhi. In the background rises the hill of Mekha-Sandhx, once sanctified by the legend of prince Vigvantara (cf. ibid., p. 5 5 ; Notes sur la giographie ancienne du Gan- dhdra, in B. £. F. E.-O., I, 1901, pp. 347-59; and above, p. 123)- Q.iite to the right Stands the rugged hill-side, on which is still to b-‘ found the inscription of Aijoka (cf. p. 121). II. A photograph taken by the Archaeological Survey and placed at our disposal by Dr. J. Ph. Vogel (cf. p. 124). In the foreground wc see the central spur, on which Stands the principal monastery : the view extends towards the north-east above the hillsof the little ränge of Takht-i-Bahai as far as the Swät mountains. For other views of the same site cf. Sur la frontiire indo-afghane, fig. 14, or Tour du monde, ibid , p. 545, and Art g.-b. du Gandh , figg. 1 and 63-4 (with plan and description of the buildings, pp. 160-163). g REEK ORIGIN OF THE BUDDHA TYPE PL. XII Stes. esSünaystsä! »TT*— '*T* at Tr v THE VILLAGE OF SHÄHBÄZ-GARHI L¥&fccv**S& THE RUINS OF TAKHT-I-BAHAI - -riJ ZS^A ^ss&iä» -*/• :**3gÖä -.T. .* 3*jy*V. ,J. *i ■ ?v*4! ;<&% V* •UZi -Stä'-.W,; .KÄ-W 5 ■i--v^; v ' ‘Y<.l*rT v ~ -V 5 * yi. üsis süeSESLi,; ?'Wö-: hss * 1 iS-* ssÄu * 'V^ össtjip T. W> . *r V*V«“' - -7*,« ^SÖW* aSr «»21 S5ää PLATE XIII .■ Ci /H uji a ,ti -ei »o ' ;i .T.i:-) Cf. p. 124. -■ r —:ri:t rln^oJC"!- 1 rsv . i ,!rU - '• >,-■ I 1^1—-T 0 v v rn 7 I. —Anengraving borrowedfrom Sur lafrontiire indo-afghane, fig. 15, (or Tourdumonde, Nov. 1899, p. 544); after a photograph taken by the author. The eminence, increased in height by the slow accumulation of the dust of the past, is still surrounded by a magnificent wall, now buried in the earth. The people of the country continue to maintain a connection between the village and the hill of Takht-i-ßahai, situated at a distance of less than a league to the north, which would represent respectively the Capital and the « throne » of one and the same räjah (cf. p. 124). II. — An Archaeological Survey photograh, communicated by Dr. J. Ph. Vogel, representing a corner of the recent excavations of Dr. D. B. Spooner in one of the neighbouring tumuli of Sahri-Bahlol (cf. p. 124). These excavations have been described by their author in the Archceolog- ical Survey of India, Annual Report, iyo 6 -j, pp. 102-118. For previous explorations of the same district see H. W. Bellew, General Report on the Euzufzfli (Lahore, 1864) and Punjab Gifetteer, Peshawar District (1897-1898), pp. 46 sqq.; for the more modern researches (1912) of Sir Aurel Stein see, on theother hand, Annual Report of the Archieolog- ical Survey of India, Frontier Circle, 1911-12 (Peshawar, 1912, with map). GREEK ORIGIN OF THE BUDDHA TYPE PL. XIII THE VILLAGE OF SAHRI-BAHLOL ^ 7 ^ - -■ L**-* K5 Ä i*w*\ 2 . EXCAVATIONS NEAR SAHRI-BAHLOL • V . ' assWhCv'Lfc ¥1 ■•• V—v^r.. £: . . f... • ,-rf- -.•'A-, -*W '* . ^•v;?•*>;. N/.. • 4 y- - •-? **V s :,Vjtf i .C|> ~ ' '-' r -' nä r ^-' c : H) io .;oi:c^3i|^Lt all! .($j; -'J-i:': * • • vlil ’ ^ t *?üdt *••' ? 4 ( i’ Js “ i .M'^WW& ub »mna» sWi^»tw>v va '*»«■>. '.y.o/,-rat-, Siyu8 a i. i ia MTMmttii '• ■•*-'-< ; i".i I --> ... ,.„ t, .. '.xtji&itf a I . \<'. *j ilv'iH'.. ''-i'": ! af*.r- : * ■i U\l'.‘J,v' .---a s. -V. ;; i • r/j r üi i- PLATE XIV Cf. pp. 126 - 129 . .F* 1 ?. r -‘ ‘.J »i^ 111 f j'.i j< - :.. 1. X ; ‘in • 1 tadi ■;:>i pfiol ari: k?;ri ilsl iwwsin : .* - .•-> ■.. .. ) ■;f- r;-. lü «not srh m '“•tni'jd .(• s lo OOj: .r c , inscribed round a Zeus seated on a throne with a back, holding in his raised left hand the long sceptre and on his extended right hand the eagle(cf. p. 126). — b. Head of a king, wearing a diadem and a helmet in the form of an elephant’s head; on the reverse, mention of « King Demetrios », inscribed on both sides of a Standing Heracles, bearing in his left hmd the club and the lion’s skin and with the right hand crowning himself with an ivy- wreath (cf. p. 126). — c. Diademed head of the « Saviour King Menander » ; on the reverse, Pallas Athene, bearing the aegis and hurl- ing the thunderbolt : round her the same inscription, but this time in the Indian alphabet and language of the north-west (cf. p. 127). — d. Full-length portrait of the « Shah of Shahs, Kanishka the Kushan »; spear in the left hand, the right extended above a pyre ; on the reverse, a Standing Buddha, having an aureole and a nimbus (cf. p. 128). VW* GHEEK ORIGIN OF THE BUDDHA TYPE PL. XIV fjmß 7 W'f A t 1. - SHÄH-JLKI-DHERi (KANISHKA STUPA) <.• fr/' P« «an yj?. j V - -- 2. INDO GREEK AND INDO-SCYTHIC COINS ? =V" ,yviv >;; * v y >■ \\"i .'S. VCvi' c ->:vv .wt.$ JM«Ä .,-«. -j» ,•. -V *.C ■f-JL's *:: lr.^ • •**’' 5ÄÄ •5oh-«r.-Zi* £**s ?Cfe E*-*& B£*: 3 i ■ ■•rjSfc-j hysö .--rvijp '-*1 t 'K :-Sas' SK®; 1 gSjfetjfsS»« ras» OUS Ol PLATE XV Cf. pp. 129-132. nimbus, this Statue represents that ideal type of the great lay noble which in India serves for kings and gods. (For a heliogravure and a detailed description of this particular one cf. Sculpturis grico-bouddhiques du Musee du Louvre in Monuments et Memoires, vol. VII, part I, 1900). On the pedestal is represented the worship of Buddha’s alms-bowl. PL. XV GREEK ORIGIN OF THE BUDDHA TYPE THE RELIC-CASKET OF KANISHKA 2. THE BODHISATTVA TYPE xncnl bswoiiov m i.nÜbuS lo jrrfj tat «vjjxe.'Htnr! io vqv:. axi'i'— 1 * \ff 1 i fetftö »V $ •. ;• -t. .IvisivueJÄif; io an s ?i’|jlof.srfLb jü aiij -fr:,i 1. ;; J:t ..-r, 1!.' •jic.q 10 3 ißd ad: no Lsjfnsi 91* dcirfw oy;j. m. o ■ rx.c v:i • t-, '(‘ n > mu92om nuwjJ ä-;b jp gsbodqoZ .o’ 7,r {^olosr^u i«:22£&.,j*t eltunca: leor :. osutciqo. • VU 1 7C'1 .; ,: /z> ! i^uoi . ■ *iJ»V ';«£ 3" £ .1^' P' I. —The type of Bodhisattva and that of Buddha are borrowed from a frieze inthe museumof theLouvre(cf. Art g.-b. du Gandh., fig. 134); ihatofthe monk from a bas-relief in the British Museum. For the reason of their being placed together cf. pp. 133-134. II. — The image of Christ is reproduced from a plate in Professor Strzygowski’s Orient oder Rom ; let us not omit to confess that it has been artificially isolated from the rest of the sarcophagus. In contrast to its slender figure the image of Buddha (no. 527 of the Lahore Museum; height m. 0,60) is noticeably squat. The gesture of the left arm we shall find again in the Buddha of this same plate XVI, 1, and in the sixth of the seven which are ranged on the base of plate XXVI, 1. For comparison the Sophocles of the Lateran museum may be found reproduced in most manuals of classical archaeology. (Cf. pp. 135-136). GREEK ORIGIN OF THE BUDDHA TYPE PL. XVI TYPES OF BODHISATTVA, BUDDHA AND MONK 2 . GRyCGO-GHRISTIAN CHRIST AND GR^ECO-BUDDHIST BUDDHA The Tutelary Pair in Gaul and in India 0 When turning over the leaves of the monumental and valuable Recueil des bas-reliefs, statues et bustcs de la Gaule romaine of M. Esperandieu, we see again and again a figure usually entitled « Abundance » or « Goddess Mo- ther ». Rare in Provence, where apparently it isbetter con- cealed under the purely classical features of Demeter and Fortune, it shows itself from time to time in Aquitaine with an appearance already more indigenous ; then multi- plying itself, it passes into « Lyonnaise », where we have counted it no less than forty times (vols. III-IV) : the se- quel of the publication will teil us whether it enjoyed the same favour in Belgian Gaul. Its most usual type, very close to that of the pullulant Matres , holds in the left hand a horn of abundance, and in the right a patera. In no. 3225 (Langres) we see moreover on either side ofthe god- dess two little genii, one of whom « dips into a purse plac- ed between her feet ». If it is not she, then it is one of her sisters, who elsewhere is represented with a child in her arms, like aMadonna (nos. 1326-1334, Saintes), orwith a sack on her knees, from which drop coins (no. 1367, Ruffec). At times fruits are also placed actually on the lap ofthe goddess (nos. 2350, Mont Auxois ; 3237, Langres). Lastly,the patera is occasionally replaced byacake(nos. 1528, (1) Revue archeolopque , 1912, II, pp. 34 !‘ 9 - ii 140 THE TUTELARY PAIR IN GAUL AND IN INDIA Bourges), or, in the more debased pieces, by a goblet of the special form called an olla (nos. 1161, Puy-de-Döme; 2112, Beaune). These last attributes seem to be only borrowings from another Gallic divinity, or rather two others who are masculine and likewise of frequent occur- ence. Their usual attributes are the olla and the purse, often difficult to distinguish from one another; but local and barbarous variants represent them as holding likewise the cake and the sack of money (no. 1555, La Guerche, Cher), or even a child (no. 2882, Auxerre), whenthey do not in their turn borrow the patera full of fruits (no. 2263, Entrains)or thehornofabundance (nos. 2162, Mäcon; 2166, Chalon-sur-Saöne). One of the types is beardedlike Jupiter, whose long sceptre it replaces, as we know, by the handle of a mailet. The other, beardless, most often hides his per- sonality under the figure of Mercury. The intimate rela- tionship of both with the goddess, or goddesses, of « Abundance » is certain : for a proof we require only the numerous groups in which they appear in Company, Standing on the same Stele or seated side by side on the same seat. Some represent the god without a beard, and indi- cate clearly — from the wings on his feet up to the peta- sus, taking the caduceus en route — his assimilation to Mercury (nos. 1800, Fleurieu-sur-Saöne; 1836, Autun), or give him the appearance of a « local Mars » (no. 1832, Autun). The majority resort to the model of the bearded god with a mailet (nos. 2066, Nuits; 3441, Dijon etc.). Often they assign to the husband, as mark of office, the same horn of abundance as to his companion, unless they lend to thelatter the purse (no. 3382, Chätillon-sur-Seine), or make both place their hands on the same olla (no. 2118, Beaune). In one case a child is playing at their feet (no. 1830, Autun). For the necessities of our case we will THE TUTELARY PAIR IN GAUL AND IN INDIA 141 restrict ourselves to borrowing from M. Esp£randieu’s Collection an almost complete specimen of each of the two Principal variants of the subject (pl. XVII, 1 and 2) (*). No one expects from an Indianist that he shall under- take more closely to identify Gallo-Roman divinities or even to distinguish very carefully between them; but perhaps he may beallowed to point out the existence, on the oppo- site confines of the world known to the ancients, of per- fectly analogous figures and evengroups (pl. XVIII, 1 and 2). As far as one can judge of the popularity of gods by the always fortuitous result of excavations, this divine pair was in Gandhärano less in vogue than in Lyonnaise; but there we possess more precise information concerning it. The Buddhist community showed itself more recep- tive to populär superstitions than the Christian clergy. It assigned a place in its convents, and dedicated passages of its scriptures, to this conjugal association of the fairy with the children and the genius with the purse : for, after all, they are only demi-gods of fairly low extraction, created for the use ofthe middle classes,and onalevel with them. In the man it has long been proposed to recognise Kuvera, the « King of the Spirits » ( s ); but the texts merely desi- gnate him as their «general »,by his namePäncika, and it is in virtue of this title that he is nearly always leaning upon a lance. These Yaksbas of India, like the dwarfs of our tnythologies, are essentially guardians of treasures; and doubtless this is how Päikika must have commenced (1) In addition to the specimens represented or quoted in the texts, see also nos. 1564, 1573,1828, 1837, 1849, 2129, 2249,2252-2253, 2255-2256, 2271, 2313, 2334, 2353, 2878-2881, 2911, etc. It seems that the same two gods are again found in the Company of the same goddess on the « triades » °f nos. 2131 (Autun) and 2357 (Asile-Sainte-Reine). (2) Cf. Dr. J. Ph. Vogel, Note sur une siatue du Gandh&ra , in B. E. F. £-0., 111,1903. 142 THE TU 1 LLARY PAIR IN GAUL AND IN IN DIA his career; but the « purse of gold », which he holds in his right hand, would sufficiently prove, even if we were not expressly told, that he had already transformed him- self from a jealous gaoler into a generous dispenser of riches. Whilst the miserly demon was thus changinginto a liberal genii~, his wife Häriti was undergoing a parallel evolution, and from an ogress was becoming a matron. Originally she personified some terrible infantile epidemic; and, although herseif a mother of five hundred little elves, she found her food in the children of men; but when she is depicted for us by religious art, she is suppos- edtohavebeen already converted by Buddha, and her sole functionisto accord to the vows ofthe faithfula numerous progeny. If we care to translate the myth into Greco- Roman terms, Lamia was metamorphosed into Lucina. Most often she is represented as holding on her knees, or even suckling, her last-born, which has caused her to be called the Buddhist Madonna (‘), whilst numbers of her sons frolic around her or, climbing about her person, make her look like an Italian allegory of Charity. The authorsof pl. XVIII, i and 2 have expressed the traditional conception of the fruitful and fructifying Häriti in a man- ner more sober than usual, being content with putting a cornucopia into her left hand. They forget only one point, namely that according to Indian ideas a horn or any other remnant of a dead animal (except the black antilope) is an unclean thing, and that only people of the currier caste, the least fastidious and the mostdespised ofmen, can touch such an object. For us Europeans, who are not disturbed by such refinements of delicacy, this attribute, far from shocking, only awakens in the delighted mind ideas of fer- (1) Cf. infra, the last essay. THE TUTELARY PAIR IN GAUL AND IN INDIA 143 tile maturity and maternal prosperitv. This is, indeed, how the Indo-Greek sculptors understood it, and the mere choice of this symbol would be sufficient to prove that they were more Greek than Indian : but the meaning of these abridged versions remains evidently the same as that of the more ornate replicas, which encumber with urchins the pedestal, the knees, and even the shoulders of these same persons (cf. pl. XLVIII, 1). The mere sight of the god leaning lovingly on the arm or the shoulder of his companion, and the latter not fearingto caress his knee in public, leaves us in no doubt that populär imagination and cult have in fact united in matrimony the genius who dis- penses riches and the fairy who grants posterity. We should be willing to believe that the Gallic groups, like their Indian prototypes, must practically answer to the same eternal desires of humanity for offspring and for mo- ney — although our modern civilization seems to detach itself from the one to the advantage of the other. As far as the god is concerned, whether it be a question of the Gallic Mercury, who, we are told by Caesar, controlled the gains of commercial transactions, or of that Dis Pater , who seems to be the native double of Plutus, as well as of Pluto, the purse which he holds in his hand is in all languages an expressive emblem : and as for the goddess, by whatever name she may be called, Rosmerta, Ma'ia, Tutela, Nanto- svelta, or simply BonaDea, herhorn ofabundance signifies fecundity. According to all appearance, whilst her husband was more particularly destined to fulfil the aspirations of the men, her task was to satisfy those of the women ; and thus in Gaul, as in India, both sexes must have found satis- faction in the worship of this divine pair. Besides, it is sufficient or four purpose that their tutelary character should be incontestable. What chiefly interests us is the analogy 144 THE TUTELARY PAIR IN GAUL AND IN INDIA between the procedures followed by the artists of such distant countries, in Order to picture before our eyes ideas on the whole analogous. Between the two groups reproduced in our plates the only contrast at all striking consists in the respectively inverse positions of the two spouses. But, inverted as it is, it retains the same intention of reserving for the goddess the place of honour in relation to the man — that being ac- cording to the old Indian custom on the left, and not on the right as with us (*). The stool placed beneath the left foot of the persons in pl. XVII, i is lacking in pl. XVIII, i and 2; but it exists on other replicas, and, besides, the group of pl. XVII, 2 dispenses with it likewise. The scaly decoration of the pedestal of pl. XVIII, 1, made of coins half covering each other, is only a paraphase of the signification of the purse. The double seats on pl. XVIII allow a sight of their four feet, turned on the lathe in the Indian manner: but, on the other hand, the nimbus which emphasizes the divine character of the pair is perfectly familiär to our western eyes. Then, beside these small local differences, what re- semblances are to be observed! If we leave aside the leg- gings and the large earrings of the Indian genius, his cos- tume even, consisting of a tunic anda cloak, isnot so very different from that usually worn by his Gallo-Roman equi- (1) For other conjugal pairs thus placed cf. Art greco-bouddhique du Gart- dhära, figg. 160-162. A curious fact to be noticed is that two Gallo-Roman groups, to be classed among those which have best retained the accent of their birthplace, also place the goddess on the left of the god; they are nos. 1319 (Saintes) in which the god with the purse is crouched down « i l’indienne » near the goddess with the horn of abundance, who is seated in the European manner, and 2334 (Auxois). We may ask ourselves if the custom of the Gauls was not the same as that of the Indians on this point, exactly as we know that it was the common custom of the two nations to count past time by nights and not by days, etc. THE TUTELARY PAIR IN GAUL AND IN INDIA 145 valents. To the mailet of the one corresponds well enough the long sceptre of the other, with its end rounded in the form of a mace (pl. XVIII, 1). As for the beardless god of pl. XVII, 2, he, we are told,« holds in his left hand a lance, and in the other an object scarcely recognizable, perhaps a purse » : these are precisely the insignia of the correspond- ing person in pl. XVIII, 2. Last but not least, the women have the same pose, the same attributes, the same draperies, even the same headdress in the form of a « bushell », or « basket » : between them a quasi-identity asserts itself, and there would be no exaggeration in saying that, from the banks of the Indus to those of the Seine, it would have cheated even the eyes of the donors. Such is the testimony of the monuments. What does it prove ? Let us hasten to say, nothing very new: for certainly no one will venture to imagine direct influences between Gaul and India. Moreover, the connection, as far at least as the goddess is concerned, is already established in the memory ofinstructed readers by a number of intermediary figures : at need it would soon be discovered among those tiny mercantile and travelling folk, the Mediterranean terra- cottas. We shall be excused for holding in this case also to prudent generalities and confining ourselves to the intro- duction of our Indian replicas into thediscussion. If it were not sufficient to indicate this new fact, and if we ought fur- ther to essay an interpretation of it, that which we should propose is a very simple one. It has long been ascertained that the art of Gandhära borrowed its technique from Hel- lenistic art: it is impossible then that it should not have features in common with Greco-Roman, and consequently with the Gallo-Roman art. This kind of relationship, how- ever distant the degree may be, is justified principally, in archaeology as well as in linguistics, by the same construc- 146 THE TUTELARY PAIR IN GAUL AND IN INDIA tion of the forms and the employment of the same gram- mar, verbal or decorative: and in this particular case no specialist could turn over the leaves of M. Esperandieu’s collection without noticing, in support of the cousinship of these distant schools, a numberofdetails of composition and the constant return of the same ornamental subjects, amorini, griffons or tritons, garlands, acanthuses orflowers. But, after all, nothing is more striking and more persuasive for the public than a comparison bearing on vocabu- lary, especially ifit is a question of a common signincant word. This is just the kind of contribution that we believed we could supply here by noting the suggestive correspondence of the oriental and Occidental expres- sions of the same ideas, or, better, of the same religious needs. ln truth, these works, however complex they may be,only transcribe quite rudimentary notions; butnotions onlv the more deeplv grounded in human nature. Such as they are, these groups — which, besides, are nearly contemporaneous —seemtous tofurnishfor themoment one ofthe mostpalpable verifications of the factthatin the first centuries of our era the sculptors of the Gauls and those of Ariana had each learned at the school of the Greeks, and spoke from one end of the ancient world to the other the same common language, the same artistic « koin£ ». •oiuii rliiv/ bslirl. /)mU\ k) PLATE XVII Cf. pp. 141-145 er ^ o 3 M 1 Jm aß o äß Ö « üß Oß is scarcely recogmzable, perhaps a purse. 1 he goddess, clothed in a long robe which leaves a part of her breast and her right shoulder uncovered, holds in her right hand a patera and in the other a horn of plenty, filled with fruits », THE TUTELARY PAIR PL. XVII 4 < ■v. w V' T •sr^* PLATK XVIII Cf. pp. 141-145 C -5 :D % J 2 a- C "2 rt i_» rM S °q 2 2 js O- OJ 3 > crt O -3 fc ß -t-* _ü r. U _£2 t/i *r? 5P-£! ,2 o ÖD '->-' c 5 ; -o 3 J3 2 >-> Os 05 1) J3 w*/ ;— •*/ u °h ü JJ u M o TO i _ c *3 o _ VJ -c ÖD ■ . 00 ^ f -» o » c 2 o £ C O- o 1 > >N M a u -s "3 _C u C v- _4 -fi tu "3 "3 JS 2 > % ? n r P rt ■ß 3 « a. Q- r* • ■—i J Ö 43 O- j= ~3 U 3 U >~i c •c U c u -3 cl rt O 3^03 rr\ c ^ P >-> ü rt -3 > O -t- l/J ^ u 3 O O 3 -Q So _3 ^ -3 *=* #M I— _ tt CI. o cJ C c 4 / V r- Tt Lm _Q Um Ci ~ <« "3 o *-■ G l"M .“. •> cs ^3 -D je, t^a. 3 £ S3 2 oc o o U •—* -3 o 3 v- Jd 3 c i- u 3 P "H £ ^ ^3 -3 have to Support, is the Pürana Kä^yapa whom the Buddhist legend denotes as their leader and whose defeat is about to have for penalty an ignominious suicide ( ä ). It is again he whom we believe we can identify on the left side of the new panel of plate XIX, i, by his shaven head, his naked- ness and, especially, by his stränge backward posture, in striking contrast to the devout attitude of the Buddhist monk who forms a pendant to him on the other side. But, on the whole, representations of monks belonging to other sects are rather rare in Buddhist art, even where their presence would be most expected : and the pictures of the Master’s triumphs willingly dispense with the not very edifying spectacle of the vanquished. It would be only the moredesirable that we should possess a good reproduction of what is still to be found of this Ajanta fresco. Lacking this, we must content ourselves with giving a sketch of one of those which adorn the principal archway of Cave IX (pl. XXI, i). We know the curious aspect of that little subterranean chapel, with its three naves, its portal gallery and its stüpa marking the position of the altar : the warm, ruddy tones ofits frescoes give thefinishing touches (1) At the bottom of the upper compartment on the left we perceive, indeed, in addition to the two nägaräjas who are holding up the stem of the central lotus, i st , at the left of the spectator, King Prasenajit, who is recognizable by his parasol-bearer and his elephant, and 2 nd , facing him, also seated upon a stool, Pürana Kiijyapa, in the form of a fat, naked man, with shaven head, who is supported from behind under the arms by one of his companions. We may connect with this type that of thesame person in Art g.-b. du Gand}), (fig. 261 and 225 c ), and read, ibid., pp. 529 and 537, remarks on the rarety of these representations of « sectarians ». (2) Divyävadäna, p. 165 THE GREAT MIRACLE 165 to the illusion of an ancient basilica. Above the pillars, where the triforium should be, ranges a series of pain- tings representing hieratic groups (*). One, almost com- plete, which is represented by our plate, has the advan- tege of uniting only the essential elements of the subject, namely, the three Buddhas with their feet placed on lotuses, and — at each side of the one in the centre of the pic- ture, who is teaching, and of whom the two others are, and c an only be, illusory emanations — the two traditional divi- nities, voluntarily reduced to the humble role of flyflap- holders. Is it necessary to observe that this is exactly the s ame distribution of persons ( 1 2 ) that we find again on the lower row of plate XIX, 2 ? All the specimens of which we have just been speaking, both from Benares and from Ajanta, can in bulk be dated, accordance with the alphabet of the inscriptions on some °f them, as of the V lh or VI th Century of our era. We shall flot hesitate, in spite of time and distance, to connect ^ith them the numerous groups which decorate the princi- Pal wall of the highest sculptured gallery of Boro-Budur (IX* h Century). Almost the whole of this wall is covered ^dth variations on the theme of the « Great miracle » of (1) Cf. Griffiths, Paintings of Ajantd, pll. XXXVIII and XXXIX. (2) The only differences to be observed consist, i 9t in the somewhat Ca pricious detail (cf. p. 167) of the Orientation of the acoiyte Buddhas, turned ° r not towards the central Buddha ; 2 nd in the fact that the latter has a lotus n ot for a seat, but only for a footstool. This kind of throne and this sitting P°sition ff in the European mode » are current peculiarities of the local st yle, although they are not unknown to the school of Benares and although tnay have found them even so far as in the great Buddha of the Chandi ^lendut near Boro-Budur in Java. They constitute all theless an obstacle to proposed attribution since the central lotus, whiletreated asa simple little e nch, is nevertheless usually supported by the two classical nagaräjas (cf. 0r example, in Arch. Survey West. India, IV, pl. XXXVI, 2, the Buddha CraA ed 0n the stüpa of cave XXVI of Ajänta, and below, p. 168). i66 THE GREAT M1RACLE Qrävasti; and this profusion of replicas is sufficiently justi- fied by the enormous surface which the sculptors of the monuments had received instructions to decorate. We content ourselves here with reproducing the group placed at the left of the eastern staircase, which we know was that of the fa^ade (pl. XXII). On the other side an analo- gous group forms a pendant thereto, except that it is still more complex and contains no less than seventeen images of the Blessed One. The general arrangement of these compositions is a compromise — doubtless imposed by the dimensions of the rectangular panels, which were much wider than they were high — between the line taken by plates XIX, 2 and XX and that by plate XXI, 1 : but on one sideor the other all the topical featuresare to be found. This symmetrical reduplication of Buddhas, supported by lotuses and surrounded by divinities, suffices to establish not only the undeniable relationship of the schools, but also the fundamental identity of the subjects. Inevitable, again, is the connection with many of the great rock-sculpturesofnorthern China, lessremotein time, but not less distant in space, from their Indian prototvpes. We shall note especially, among the gigantic images which decorate the grottos of Ta-t'ong-fu (V' h Century), those recently published by M. Chavannes, which, as he informs us, owe the possibility of their being so clearly photograph- ed to the fact that the crumbling of the rocky fa^ade has left them open to the sky (pl. XXI, 2). The presence of a second Buddha Standing at the left of the great seated one, — the acolyte on the right has disappeared in the fallen debris — is sufficient to recall the mahä-prätihärya : and the innu- merables figures of the Blessed One, superposed upon a kind of band, which form nimbuses and aureoles on the flamboyant background of the tejas, finally convince us THE GREAT MfRACLE 167 that we have to deal with a representation of this miracle in the traditional formof the multiplication of Buddhas ('). All these works of art, painted or carved, whether Chinese, Japanese, or Indian, represent more or less, in fact, — to make use of the expression employed in literature, — the vaipulya method of sculptured tradition. Let us return to our starting point, I mean to the quite summary lesson presented to us by the Stele of the Archseological Survey (pl. XIX, 1) : we shall see connected with it also a series of replicas no less sober than itself. A carving, which we believe to be unpublished, will furnish us with a type of them, at least as far as Magadha is concerned (pl. XXIII, 1). A great Buddha, seated, in the attitude for teaching, on a lo- tus whose stem is flanked by two Nägaräjas, is inserted be- tween two other images of himself, with feetalso resting on lotuses. The only novelty introduced is that the two aco- lyte Buddhas, instead of confronting the spectator, as in plate XIX, 1, or being turned towards the central person, as in plate XXI, 1, or slightly turned from him, as in plate XIX, 2, are looking in exactly opposite directions. This slab, of rather rüde workmanship and late date ( 1 2 ), will serve as a perfectly natural transition to the miniatures of the Nepalese or Bengal manuscripts of the XI th -XIII‘ h centuries, (1) We should like to connect with these groups from Ta-t’ong-fu others somewhat later, which decorate the grottos of the pass of Long-Men (Ho-nan), of which also M. Chavannes has brought back photographs taken in the course of his last mission in China (see, already, Toung Pao, Oct. 1908, fig. 4; cf. Journal asiatique, July-August 1912, figg. 1-4; Bull. Ecole fr. Extr.-Or., V, 1905, fig. 36) : but here the two acolytc Buddhas have been changed into two simple monks! The transformation might in strictness be explained by scrupulous orthodoxy (cf. above, pp. 161-162). (2) For a reproduction of an analogous group, of the same provenanee and likewise preserved in the Museum of Calcutta, see Et. sur l'Iconogr. bouddb. de l’Inde, I, fig. 28, where these three Buddhas are placed justbelow a representation of the Nativity. i68 THE GREAT MIRACLE where the representation of the « great miracle » of £rävasti by three Buddhas back to back has become the constant rule (’). The identification of our plate XXIII, i, which already flowed naturally from the analogy of the new Stele of Särnath, receives, on the other hand,an interesting con- firmation in extremis from these latest indigenous manifes- tations of Buddhist art. Whilst definitely taking this turn in eastern India, our subject became in the West by degrees stereotyped under a form equally abridged, but sensibly different. The place occupied by Elias and Moses in the Christian pictures of the Transfiguration is now, in the representations of the Buddhist « great miracle », no longer held by the two acolyte Buddhas, but by two divine attendants. The ima- gery of the valley of the Ganges had reduced their part to almost nothing, or even omitted it entirely : here, on the contrary, they end by figuring alone at the side of the Master, Standing on lateral lotuses and retaining in their hands their fly-flappers. As to the central Buddha, at one time he continues to sit in the Indian manner upon a padma like that of platesXIX-XX; at other times, and more frequently, he is installed on a throne after the manner of Europeans, as in plate XXI, i, and only uses the necessary lotus as a footstool : but nevertheless the two traditional Nägaräjas continue to hold up its stem. We borrow from a mural sculpture of Kuda the most reduced type of the first variant (pl. XXIII, 2) : ano less summary specimen of the second would be furnished by one of the caves of Kon- divt£ ( 1 2 ). But, above all, we must recognize that all the cave- (1) Cf. above, p. 154, n. 1. (2) See Borgess, A. S. W. IV, pl. XLIII, I, left part (cf. ibid., p. 71). Cf. the fuller replicas of Kanheri, ibid., fig. 22; Buddh. Art in India, fig. 60, and Cave Temples of India, pl. LVI (cf. ibid ., p. 358), etc. THE GREAT MIRACLE 169 templesofwestern India arecovered with representations of this kind. On this point it is sufficient to refer to the testi- mony, which no one will think of challenging, of Fer- gusson and Burgess. Along with them we might gather an ample harvest of replicas of the « great miracle ». If we do no undertake to draw up a list from their descrip- tions or from the too cursory notes which we formerly found occasion totake, it is because on these sculptures of a late period there is always reason to fear contamination ofsubjects (*). IV We have followed up the evolution of the subject and its variants from the V th Century of our era to the final extinction of Buddhist art in India. Could we not now, after having brought the course of its history as far down as possible, endeavour to remount towards its origin and seek in the preceding schools, beginning with that of Gandhära, the prototypes of the monuments which we have just iden- tified? The enterprise imposes itself upon us, and there seems to be no way of escape. Such fortunately is, so far as (1) In fact these contaminations have not failed to take place. The Buddha ofthe mahapratih&rya ofQrävasti makes the gesture of instruction, exactly as does the Buddha ofthe Dharmacakra-pravartana of Benares: nothingfurther was required to provoque confusions and exchanges between the two motifs originally characterized, the one by the lotus with the Nägaräjas, the other by the wheel with the gazelles On plate 164 of Anc. Mon. India, by the side of the subject of our plate XXIII, 2, we find some « First Preachings » treated as « Great Miracles *, except that the gazelles have replaced the Nägaräjas on each side of the lotus; on the fa^ade of the great temple of Kärli ( ibid pl. 16S) the gazelles have even been intercalated above Nägaräjas ! From this it may be conceived with what precautions we must surround ourselves before risking a firm identification from descriptions alone. THE GREAT MIRACLE 170 Buddhist iconography is concerned, the routine force of tradition, that, in Order to succeed in this second part of our task, it will suffice to determine with exactitude the distinctive feature common to all the verified represen- tations of the mahäprätihärya. Now, if you turn over the plates afresh, you will very soon observe that what characterizes them above all is the special form of this lotus « with a thousand petals ( l ), as broad as a chariot wheel, of solid gold, with a diamond stem », Standing out entirely from the plinth. Whether supported or not by the two Nägaräjas, whose masterpiece it is, it constantly serves as a throne — or at least as a footstool — to a Buddha eated in the attitude of teaching, By this sign we must henceforth retrospectively identify a whole series of Greco-Buddhist stelae, the greater number of which have already been published, but not explained, and which for the convenience of the reader we have here collected together before his eyes (pll. XXIV-XXVIII, 1). The most sober type (and the one which most closely resembles that of plate XXIII, 2) presents to us a Buddha, flanked simply, in addition to the usual worshippers, by two Standing divinities ( 2 ), who, like him, are sheltered under (1) Divyävadäm, p. 162, 11 . 9-11. Cf.the epithet of Buddha in Kshemen- dra’s Dagävataracarita, IX, 54 : Bhünirgata-pratata-kdncana-padma-prstha- padmäsrnastha... (2) We may connect •with this group that of the British Museum, repro- duced by Dr. Burgess (Journ. of Indian Art and Ind., no. 62, 1898, pl. 8, 2 ~Anc. Mon. India, pl. 92, in the middle) : the teaching Buddha and the two divinities are seated, or standing, on the enlarged pericarp of a lotus flower. In the acolyte at the right we recognise Brahmä. by his head-dress and his water vessel, in the one on the left £akra by his diadem. The two worshippers are withdrawn to the bottom of the Stele and separated by what is usually the stalk of the central lotus, but is here treated as a pyre. — We pay no regard to another image (that of the Calcutta Museum), likewise published by Dr. Burgess(/. I. A, I., no. 69, Jan. 1900, fig. 24 = Buddh. Art THE GREAT MIRACLE 171 parasols, adorned with garlands (pl. XXIV, 1). On plate XXIV, 2 we scarcely divine the Suggestion of the lotuses on which rest the seat of the Master and the feetofhis two aco- lytes : on the other hand, two other busts of the Blessed One are interposed in the hollows delimited by the lines of their shoulders : except for the exchange of place be- tween the two gods and the two magical Buddhas, it is evi- dently the same group as on plates XIX, 2 (first row) and XXI, 1. At other times the ingenious art of the sculptor erects graceful architectures (pl. XXV) above the three prin- cipal characters : doubtless we must here recognize the prätihärya-mandapa , built expressly for the occasion of the miracle; but we remain free to admire in it, together with the Müla-Sarvästivädins, the royal munificence of Prase- najit, or, with the Theravädins, the divine skill of Vigvakar- man ('). At one time (*) it is a simple portico that presides above the three seated figures (pl. XXV, 2\ At another time bolder constructions lodge beneath their domes or arches images of Buddha or even accessory episodes (pll. XXV, 1 and XXVI, 1). On this last plate the two divinities, again Standing, have each provided themselves with a long garland, which we shall find in their hands on all the reproduc- tions that we still haveto examine (pll. XXVI, 2-XXVIII, 1). The latter, like those first cited, place the scene — or rather, the vision — in the open sky : at the most, they inlndia, fig. 1x2): here Buddha is indeed seated between the two worshippers on the characteristic lotus, but — by an exception which, for the rest, is since the last excavations of Takht-i-Bahai (cf. below, p. 172, note 1) not unique — he is makingthe gestureof meditation, instead ofthat ofinstruction. (1) Divyävaddna, p. 155, 1 . 18 ; Jätaka, IV, p. 265, 1 . 10. (2) Frorn the point of view of the arrangement of the attendants we may connect with this plate the fragment published by Dr. J Ph. Vogel in Archzol. Survey Report, iyoß-tpo^ pl. LXVIII b (with the Nagaräjas) and c. 172 THE GREAT MIRACLE shelter some small figures under aerial sediculse. However, the number of divine spectators increases in a striking man- ner. Nowthey are placed one above the other on their lotus Supports, profiting by all the liberty which a picture of apparitions allows to be taken with the laws of perspective. At the same time the central Buddha becomes bigger, and his figure still more disproportionate to his surroundings. The garlands which used to hang above his head no longer suffice; there is now added a crown, borne by two little genii, with or without wings; once even other marvellous beings, with their busts terminating in foliage, hold still higher a parasol of honour. Lastly, among the images which have emanated from the Blessed One, some, as if better to emphasize their supernatural and magical character, are surrounded by an irradiation in the form of an aureole composed of other Buddhas ('). These specimens are more than are required to prove that we have not to deal with the fancy of some isolated artist, but, in reality, with a traditional subject, constantly (i) See the two upper corners of plate XXVIII, i and compare fig. 78 of Art. g.-b du Gandb., and especially the panel recently discovered by Dr. D. B. Spooner at Takht i-Bahai and published by Mr. J. H. Marshall in the J . R. A. S., Oct. 1908, pl. VI, 3. Hereagain we recognize the mäha-prätihärya. The lotuses which once decorated the bottom of the slab have almost disappeared through the defacement of the stone; but it is not so with those which support the characters above, that is, five little seated Buddhas (three of whom are at the top among foliage), and the two divine garland- bearers. Bywayofan exception the principal Buddha affects the pose of medi- tation. The front of his parasol is curiously adorned with a crescent moon, doubtless in order to emphasize the aerostatic character of the miracle. But the point which specially holds our attention is the indication on each side of his body, between the knee and the shoulder, of four little Buddhas, Standing on lotuses and arranged obliquely like the outspread feathers of a peacock s tail. — It is known that Sir Aurel Stein found this procedure in use also on the sculptures of Rawak in Chinese Turkestan ( Ancient Khoian, b figg- 62-65 j c f- Sand-buried Ruins of Khoian, frontispiece). THE GREAT MIRACLE 173 reproduced for the edification, and at the request, of the faithful. The series of these examples adjusts itself without effort in all its cbaracteristic features — seat, attitude, ges- ture, surroundings of Buddha, etc. — to that in which we have already with certainty recognized versions ofthe « great miracle » of £rävasti. By virtue of the close relationship which we have often had an opportunity of noting between the Greco-Buddhist sculpture and the tradition of the Müla-Sarvästivädins we must more than ever appeal to the Divyävadäna for information concerning the identity of the various personages. In the two « kings of the serpents », who at times support the stem of the great lotus (pll.XXV, 2; XXVII; XXVIII, 1), we naturally continue to greet our old acquaintances « Nanda and his junior », either accom- panied or not by their wives. From these « fallen beings » we pass to the human bystanders. It has been asked whe- ther the two lay devotees without nimbuses and of different sexes, who on plate XXVIII, 1 surround the seat of Buddha, are not merely donors of the Stele (*). But it will be noti- ced that their point of support is, like that of the rest of the figures, the enlarged pericarp of a lotus : they appear, there- fore, to form an integral part of the scene. For the same reason we must refuse to see in them anonymous wor- shippers : rather should we seek here — exactly as in their kneeling counterparts on plate XXIV, 1 — that Lühasu- (1) This Identification was proposed incidentally by Dr. J. Ph. Vogel, A. S. I. Rep., 1903-1904, p. 257 : but, in a general way, we believe it safer to look for donors only on the bases ofstelae (cf. pll. XXV, 1: XXVI, i, and XXVll) orthe pedestals of statues. — On the other hand. the hypothesis of Dr. Vogel (ibid , n. 3) which suggests the identity of the four nimbused figures seated on the lower row of the same stele (pl. XXVIII, 1) with the four Lokapälas, seems to us most probable and confirmed by analogy with plates XXVI, 2, and XXVII. 174 THE GREAT MIRACLE datta and his wife, « the mother of Riddhila » ('), who in turn and in vain proposed to the Blessed One to accomplish the miracle in his stead. Likewise, on plate XXV, 2, the text expressly invites us to recognize in the monk and nun kneeling at each side of the Master the agragrdvikä Utpala- varna (“) and the agragrävaka Maudgalyäyana, who also asked, and saw themselves successively refused, the same authorization. It is, then, these same four personages, rather than commonplace worshippers, whom we should prefer to recognize on plate XXIV, 2. We should be equally ready to find King Prasenajit, the impartial ( 1 2 3 4 ) president of this public manifestation : but, even where the num- ber of spectators is increased, his royal equipage never appears, as later, to betray his incognito (*). In front of the four men of good caste seated at the bottom of plate XXVI, 2, it seems that we are rather, as on plates XXVII and XXVIII, 1, in the presence of the four guardian gods of our terrestrial horizon. Among the crowd of divinities we shall recognize immediately on plate XXVII, above the right shoulder of Buddha, his faithful companion Vajrapäni, to whom also by certain texts a part is given in the story, he being made to intervene in order to hasten the d£nouement ( 5 ). The feminine figure facing him (1) On this upäsaka and upäsikä Information taken from the Vinaya of the Müla-Sarvästivädins will be found in the already quoted article of M. Ed. Huber (ß. £. F. E.-O VI, 1906, pp. 9 sqq.). (2) For this title given to Utpalavarnä, cf. for example, the commentary on the Dhammapada, ed. Fausb0ll, p. 213. (3) For this impartiality cf. Divy&vadäm, p. 146, 1 . 23. (4) Cf. above, p. 164, note 1. (5) According to the Divydvadätia (pp. 163-164) the yaksha-senapati who, understanding the impossibility of otherwise overcoming the obstinacy of the Tirthyas, raises a violent storm to disperse them. is called Päncika; but the Bodhisattvävadana-kalpalatä calls him Vajrapäni (XIII, 57). Only we must THE GREAT MIRACLE 17S would perplex us greatly, did not her crown of towers signalize her at once as the incarnate nagara-dcvatä of Qrä- vasti, an edified witness of the miracle which will hence- forth assure her fame; it is in no other form that, for example, the native town of Buddha is seen on other Greco-Bud- dhist bas-reliefs ('). But the most interesting feature to be observed is that, if we are to credit the Divydvaddna , the two chief divine acolytes can be no other than Brahma on the right of Buddha and Qakra on his left. As a matter of fact, on several replicas the sculptors obviously emphasize this identification by the aid of the usual procedures of the school: to the much bejewelled turban of Indra they oppose, as is the custom, the chignon of Brahma, or they even endeavour to designate the latter expressly by the indica- tion of a water-vessel or of a book ( * l 2 ). warn the reader that this stanza vasanlatilakd, as it is given in the Bibi. Indica , I, v, p. 427, has no kind of plausible meaning. Prof. S. Levi has kind- ly restored the text for us, by the help of the Tibetan translation on the opposite page. It should read (the corrections are indicated by the italics) : Atrintare Bhagavatah satatam vipaksd« Sarvätmanä ksapanakd« avadhdrya Yaksah | Anptogravä/avrtavarsavaraii; cakara Vidrävya randhracaranän bhuvi Vajrapänih ]| We should translate : « In the meanwhile, perceiving that the Sectarians persisted in remaining obstinate adversaries of the Blessed One, the Yaksha Vajrapäni, raising a violent storm accompanied by rain, dispersed them, and forced them to seek a shelter in the hollows in the earth ». (1) See Art g.-b. du Gandh., figg. 183-184 a, and p. 360. (2) Cf. the procedure of distinction employed ibid., figg. 152, 1/4-156, 164 a (cycle of the nativity), 197 (march to Vajräsana), 212 (invitation to the preaching), 243 (preaching to the Trayastrim<;as), 264 (descent from heaven), where we know that we bave to deal at the same time with £akra, the Indra of the Gods (cf. fig. 246), and with Brahmä, the Qikhin. ln the particular case with which we are concerned their positions are at times exchanged from one stele to another (cf. plate XXIV with plate XXV and p. 170, note 2), either because on this point the tradition was uncertain or 176 THE GREAT MIRACLE It would take too long to enter further into the details of each variant; and besides on this point we may refer to the notices which accompany the plates : only, we should wish to be allowed to make three remarks of a general character. The first bears on the importance which already in the school of Gandhära we have been led to attribute to the lakshana, or sign of recognition : it seems indeed that here we find a fresh proof of the antiquity and wide exten- sion of this proceeding ('). In this very case it is a lotus with a stem rising from the ground or from the waters, that serves as a distinctive mark for a whole series of monu- ments ands has allowed us to follow the series for more than a thousand years, through the four corners of the peninsula. It is quite exceptional that, as on plate XXV, 2, the peduncle of the flower should be hidden and its peri- carp covered by a cushion : and, if the artists of Western India prefer that Buddha should cause his teaching to be heard from the height of a throne ( simhäsana ), the typical padma is retained at least as a stool for his feet. Henceforth, therefore, we may rank this « lotus emergent and usually attended by two Nägaräjas », to use heraldic terms, side by side with, for example, the « wheel flanked by two gazelies, either back to back or face to face », among the specific symbols of the great events ofBuddha’s life. In the second place, this identification seems to us to confirm another rule which we had thought ourselvesin a position tolay down, and in accordance with which there isscarcely any Gandhärian bas-relief, however passive and motionless the characters therein may be, wich does not, even under because there had been a confusion, which is always easy, between the right and the left of the statue and those of the spectator. (0 Artgr.-b. du Gandh., p, 607. THE GREAT MIRACLE 177 the most strictly iconographic appearances, conceal the story of some episode in the legend of Buddha. We shall be the more readily excused for recalling the fact, inas- much as we are the most to blame for having once ranged among the simply decorative motives, in default of find- ing a better place, several of the stelae which now assume for us a definite meaning and one of legendary value, as being versions of the « great miracle » at Qrävasti(‘). But at the same time — and this third observation is the most important of all — it is to be feared that we must relinquish the idea of indubitably distinguishing, in the whole repertory of the Greco-Buddhist school, an iconolatric group of « Buddha between two Bodhisattvas ». As far as concerns the great scene of the descent from heaven at Särikä^ya, the texts had already forced us to recog- nize in the two divine acolytes of the Master the gods Brahma and £akra. Here again ought not the same evidence to constrain us to accept the same identification ? Then will disappear our last hope of discovering by the side of the Blessed One an Indo-Greek Avalokite^vara or a Man- jugd, as plates XXIV, 1 and XXVI, 1 seem specially to invite us to do. In fact, all that we can say is that we beliewe we discern already on these stelae in the type, head-dress, attri- butes, meditative or pensive pose of the attendants the Suggestion of the procedure which later served to represent, and to differentiate from one another, the great Mahayä- nic divinities : but methodically we may not go further and light-heartedly oppose to the peremptory assertions of the texts any quasi-gratuitous conjectures. Even the sign ofthe ürnä, so distinctly marked on the forehead of the acolytes in plates XXIV, 1 and XXV, 2 fails to induce us to lay (1) Cf. ibid., figg. 76-79 and p. 479. 1 7 8 THE GREAT MIRACLE aside this prudent reserve. So longas the sculptures do not furnish us with an image bearing a written inscription, the verbal Statements of the Scriptures will always takeprece- dence over their mute velleities of expression. Likewise,the more we advance in familiarity with the old artists of the north-west of India, the nearer are we to believing that the names of Avalokite^vara and Manju^ri were as stränge to their thought as to that of the Compilers ofthe Divyävadäna and the Mahdvastu. V It will be feit how far this question passes beyond the limits ofthe present article, and we will not hereinsist upon it further. All that remains to ask ourselves, in order to complete the study ofthe representations of th emahd-prd- tihdrya, is whether it was represented or not on the most ancient monuments of central India. Now it seems indeed that the old native school had already essayed in regard to it one of those conventional and summary pictures of which it possessed the secret. The pillar of the Southern entrance in the railing of the stüpa of ßarhut has three of its faces decorated. Of the three upper bas-reliefs C*), the first represents, we believe, by the Symbol of the Bodhi- tree, the cc perfect Illumination » ; the second, by the Symbol of the stüpa , the parinirväna; the third, by the symbol of the garlanded wheel, the « great miracle ». This, at least, is suggested by two inscriptions on the last named, from which we are not certain that all the admissible inferences have hitherto been drawn (see pl. XXVIII, 2). At the bottom a king issues from his Capital, mounted in his quadriga: the (1) Conningham, Stüpa of ßarhut, pl. XIII. THE GREAT MIRACLE m epigraph, by informing us that he is called « king Prase- najit of Ko^ala », gives us at the same time the name ofthe town and localizes the scene at £ravasti. Now this king and his suite are going in the dircction of a building of impos- ing appearance, which shelters a wheel surmounted by a parasol, and bearing a heavy garland suspended from its nave. For all students of ancient Buddhist art the allegory is clear : but, for fear the spectator should conceive the slightest hesitation, a second helpful inscription informs him that it is indeed « the wheel of the Law of the Blessed One » which is represented. The Symbol, therefore, if translated into the style of the later schools, is the exact equivalent of an image of an instructing, and consequently Converting, Buddha. On each side, Standing in a devout attitude with joined hands, is a personage in splendid lay costume, such as India has always indifferently con- ceived its kings or its gods (*). Accordingly it is impossible for us in the presence of this group not to think of Buddha attended by Indra and Brahma, in the presence of this edifice not to think of the mandapa constructed for the purpose of the « great miracle ». Cunningham, with his accustomed instinct, has already connected with this bas-relief the passage in the Divyävadäm translated by Burnouf, which does precisely on this occasion make the king of Ko^ala betake himself « in his good chariot » to the presence of the Master: but he did not follow out the identification to the end ( 1 2 ). In truth, we see no reason for stopping half way. (1) For some quite similar images of gods on this same balustrade of Barhut see also Cunningham, loc. cit., pl. XVII. (2) lbid., pp. 90-91. — It will be noticed that the visit of Ajätafatru to Buddha, which on the pillar of the Western entrance forms a pendant to this one, is likewise of importance from a legendary point of view (ibid., pl. XVI and p. 89). 14 i8o THE GREAT MIRACLE Evidently it was not a question of an ordinary visit, but of a meeting having asolemn character. We knowfrom asure source, namely the inscriptions, the exact locality of the scene, that is £ravasti, the Capital of Ko$ala, and the names of the two principal actors, Prasenajit and the Blessed One ; the bas-relief shows us the devout ardour of the one, and suggests the Converting gesture of the other; finally, the accessory details of the two attendants Standing beside the invisible Buddha and the great hall which shelters him harmonize equally well with the traditions relative to the cc great miracle ». We shall not escape the conclusion that such indeed was the subject which the sculptor had propos- ed to himself. The counter-proof is easy : let us imagine that precisely this task had been set him; granted the cus- tomary procedure of the old school, we do not see how he could have accomplished it otherwise (*). Thus we should end by restoring to this subject of the mahä-prätihärya the sphere which legitimately belongs to it and which until now had been too parsimoniously mea- sured out. We are now in a position to sketch its history from the earliest to the last surviving monuments. Treat- ed allegorically — and with good reason — by the old native school, it is not long in utilizing for its own advan- tage the type of Buddha created by Indo-Greek art. From (i) Again an interesting replica of our plate XXVIII, 2 -will be found on plateXXXI, 1, of Cünningham. We should be quite willing to connect -with it the representations of wheels on pillars, like that of plate XXXIV, 4 (cf. atSänchi, Fergosson, Treeand Serpent Worship, pl. XLII, 1). Perhapsit would even be necessary to see a reference to the mäha-prälihärya in the wheel which, according to the evidence of Fa-hien and Hiuan-tsang, surmounted one of the two columns raised at the entrance to the Jetavana. THE GREAT MIRACLE 181 the outset it adopts that mudrd of instruction (‘) and espe- cially that particular lakshana of the lotus with a stem, both of which it will retain as characteristic signs from end to end of its evolution. Under its most restricted aspect, as at Barhut, it counts only two attendant divinities : but on other replicas these latter multiply themselves and mingle with apparitions of Buddhas. It is chiefly these latter that are retained by the stelae of Benares, and, after their example, by the later productions from the basin of the Ganges, whilst Western India to the very end reserves the best place for the divine acolytes. At the same time, the composition, which had finallyon the vastwalls of Ajantä attained a disproportionate development, returns, with the ultimate decadence, to the soberness of its commence- ments. All being taken into account, without going outside the Indian publications, and leaving aside the already identified miniatures of the manuscripts, we pro- pose henceforward to inscribe the rubric of the « great mi- racle of (irävasti » under the following reproductions : 1. Barhut, pl. XXVIII, 2 ; Stupa of Barhut, pl. XXXI, 1, perhaps XXXIV, 4, etc. (Ancient Indian style, 2 nd Century B. C.); 2. Gandhära: pll. XXIV-XXVIII, 1 ; J. Ind. Art. and Ind., no. 62,1898, pl. 8,2 —Anc. Mon. India, pl. 92(in the middle); Arch.Survey Report, 1903-1904, pl. LXVIII, b and c; Artg.-b. du Gandhära, fig. 78; (with an exceptional mudrd') J. I. A. /., no. 69, 1900, fig. 24= Buddh. Art in India, fig. 112, and /. R.A.S., Oct. 19084)). VI, 3 (Indo-Greek style, i st and2 nd cen- turies A. D.); 3. Benares: pl. XIX; Anc. Mon.bidia, pl. 68, 1 (in the (1) For the only two exceptions known to us cf. p. 170, n. 2, and 172, n. 1. i 82 THE GREAT MIRACLE Ieft upper compartment); (on the lateral borders)Ö7, 3, and 68, 2 (Gupta Style; 4 lh -6 lh centuries); 4. Ajantä : pll. XX-XXI, 1; Paintingsof Ajantä, pll. 15, 24, 39; Arch. Survey. West. India, IV, pl. XXXVII, 2 (Cälu- kya style, 6 th -7* h centuries); 5. Magadha : pl. XXIII, 1 ; £t. sur l’Iconogr. bouddh. de l'lnde, I, fig. 28 (Päla style, 8 th -io th centuries); 6. Konkan : pl. XXIII, 2; Arch. Surv. West. India, IV, pl. XLIII, 1, and fig. 22 = Buddh. Art in India, fig. 60; Cave TemplesofIndia, pl. LVI (Räshtraküta style, 8 th -io Ul centuries). Henceforward the picture of the mahä-prätihärya would not be missing from any school : we await only that of Mathurä. This is just what might be expected from the importance assumed by the episode in the legend, as a compulsory prodigy of every « Blessed One » worthy of his name. It would have been too aston- ishing, considering the constant parallelism between the two forms, written and figured, of the tradition, if no ancient illustration had corresponded on this point to the texts. Our hypothesis fills a real gap; and it is only just that « the great miracle of £rävasti » should advanta- geously, as far as the number of known replicasis concern- ed, bear comparison with the three other great scenes from the teaching career of Buddha. Why then — and this is the last point on which we are conscious ofowing the reader some explanation — why has it been so tardily and so laboriously recognized, whilst its three pendants were identified long ago and at first sight ? To this question we may reply, first of all, that the mahä-prätihärya, especially in the preaching form which had pre- vailed, does not lend itself, as we have abundantly experi- enced,to anything more than a picture almost void of movement, if notof picturesqueness; toeffect its instant recogni- THE GREAT MIRACLE 183 tion, it has neither the exceptional role of the monkey or the elephant, nor the characteristic decoration of the triple ladder : and here we have, doubtless, an excellent reason. There is room, in our opinion, for adding another. Weare so accustomed to utilize the archaeological information of the Chinese pilgrims in India, that we no longer think of being grateful to them for it; in Order to measure the value of their help, we have to be once without it. That is the case on this occasion : Fa-hien and Hiuan-tsang, so explicit as regards the thre#other episodes, scarcely mention theone which interests us here. The places where £rävasti and the Jetavana had been, the favourite sojournof the Master, evoked too many remembrances pell-mell for the « Great Miracle » not to be swamped in the crowd of those which on all sides, through the mouths of the guides, solicited their devout interest. We must likewise reckon withthefact that the story of the rivalry between the Master and the Tirthyas was on the spot inevitably entangled with the calumny of the noviceCihcä, or with theassassination of the courtesan Sundari: and these dramatic stories could not fail to encroach upon the miracle of Buddha, which was after all so neutral and quasi-passive. Thus, when the pilgrims finally arrive at the temple which marked the locality of the purely doctrinal and magical conflict, they both specify indeed that a Statue of theBlessed One was seated (') there; (1) We believe, in fact, after careful reading, that the mahä-caitya of Qrävasti, marking the locality of Buddha’s victory over the other chiefs of sects, was the temple ( vibära ), 60 or 70 feet high, which Fa-hien and Hiuan-tsang both saw and mentioned at the west (that is to say, at the right) of the road leading to the south of the town towards the Jetavana, about 60 or 70 (Chinese, therefore double) paces in front of the eastern gate of the park, opening from the same side upon the same road (trans. Beal, I, p. xlvii, and II, p. 10; Watters, I, p. 393). It will be noticed that this Situation corresponds fairly well with the indications of the texts (cf. i84 THE GREAT MJRACLE but they both forget to teil us on what kind of seat and accompanied by what attendants. Accordingly, do not ask why the connection between the narratives and the repre- sentations of the « Great Miracle » has been so tardily real- ized. Cease likewise to be astonished that we are still even at the present time posed by the question whether the two divine acolytes retained to the very last (as we are certain they did in the representation of the « Descent from Hea- ven ») their names of Brahma and £akra, or whether they ended by transforming themselves, in the eyes of the faithful, into Bodhisattvas, and, in that case, at what mo- ment the transformation took place. Fa-hien and Hiuan- tsang teil us nothingconcerning this. Onefeels howvaluable their testimony would have been to us, by reason of its mean date as also of the central Situation of the country from which they would have borrowed its elements,form- ing a bridge between the ancient works of the north- west and the later, but identified, productions of eastern India. If we have been able ultimately to dispense with it, this is because the Stele recently discovered atSärnäth and immediately published by Mr. Marshall put into our hands precisely the missing middle of the conducting wire, and thenceforward all that we have had to do has been to follow its direction, downwards to the disappearance, upwards to the sources of Buddhist art. For this let us thank the Archseological Survey! above, p. 149, n. 2): it seems that it is expedient to set aside in its favour the t preaching hall » built by Prasenajit, which was to be found in the centre of the town, and the stüpa next to that of (Järiputra, which is men- tioned by Hiuan-tsang only. As regards the latter, Watters States that he did not know where to place the « tope » of the « great miracle »; he forgets that the eight great caityas are not necessarily all stüpas; we know, for example, that that of the Samboihi at Bodh Gayä is a temple, and the same is explicity told us by Fa-hien and Hiuan-tsang concerning the Devavatära. o ff D- ;*■* v- 3 O rt O co ü O C W »w» -ff 5 >*i HH rt ff u C bß v 7. In the third left compartment from the top, the « Offering of the jeweis can be recognized as laymen — gods or Bodhisattvas —, are fan- Monkey », near to Vai<;äli: he enters by the left of the spectator, holding ning him with fly-flappers; at the top, two little flying genii All up the the bowl of madbu, which he places between the hands of Buddha, rect angular corners of the slab. It will be noticed that on the part of seated on his throne,and thendisappears on the right into a well, above the three Buddhas of the bottom row there is a tendency to look in the cuib of which only his feet are still to be seen ; at the top, on the different directions (cf. above, pp. 160 and 167). THE GREAT MIRAGLE OF QRÄVASTI PL. XIX AT BENARES ■ .v r - ■ \ UL. O*-* A5U! h,?*! '■ ■*TV i "r ’ -s>+*+r .;:' •*. • i.’* :*.-:V .* ‘i-v.A *WY. j £3» Ä'isf :ü> iil*;. . j 4 5 ‘»••'j *&» “333 jStf-V 3 *! &3KWI ".'r»! j &äHt s«? j&aüf*] pjjgaj.^1 te •VU'J.’ ■H JC! . '1KL& . PLATE 4 XX Cf. pp. 160-1. Piate XX w.is made from a photograph taken as well as we could manage at Ajantä, in September 1897, in the gloom of Cave VII. It represents a portion of the left wall of the Vestibüle of the sanctuary. We may compare with it a drawing published by Fergusson and Burgess, Cave Temples of India, pl. XXXI. We limit ourselves to borrowing a description from Dr. Burgess, Notes on the Bauddba Rock Temples oj Ajaniä (Bombay, 1879), p. 45 : « Thesides of the antechamber are entirely covered with small Buddhas, sculptured in rows of five to seven each, sitting or Standing on lotuses, with lotus leaves between them. The stalk of the lowest central lotus is upheld by two kneeling f.gures wi'h royal head-dresses canopied by the many-headed ndga behind each; on the left are a kneeling figure and two Standing Buddhas, and on the right a Buddha is behind the ndga, and behind him are three worshippers with prescnts... » The diversity and alternation of t he mudrds will be noticed; true, it is on this wall that the attitudes are the ir.ost varied, which is not saying much. For the identification of the two Näga-räjas with Nanda and Upananda cf. above, p. 161. the great miracle of qrävast! PL. XX - -~r- F y«*‘ *tSs mm wm ■wm AT AJANTÄ PLATE XXI Cf. pp. 164-5, 166-7 >> G •'CU X G CO JS rt O *-* y ON U-i O ^ M o rt CO — - rt ^ ^5 S O- ti H M _j ►4 _C G ~ O &, 2 n3 . U. *-/ >3 <-w CG « .3 l- ,-, öß ra o yJ .CO CO V rt g -> o o o r* — O- c »"*4 J5Ü G co U 5S u. U G s onl his 1 « .2 ?: -f? G 3 ist: 011 V5 u ; 4-* ^ — o J3 Ü CO 4) CO u rt *> .—- O u 3 G .2 g 'to £ 4) .3 _e ÖßÄ rt _2 u VO Öß «43 rt X 4> 2 ^ G 3 CQ — ^ *5 ^ x -G w 4) t-M rt E G U s U G CO 'S X cT i iy> d, oT > « Yi n 4> E u ^ _o c --« r-f ÖD r C >> u w . S g g 3 jj* ÖD Q « -ü 1) ja “ J3 .S a. Lü 6ß ' h -o o •" C 'S O .Xi »-1 .£ £ Sß tc ya co u Im •G -o -O Cu rt )-< -G o O G t c G 4> 4-< co rt aT G O 4—> J3 ’u X 4> 2 O E -3 3 03 u > O 4) 4—1 X rt V X 3 V-, 4) rt 4) CO *CO G rt .SP 'C o rt 03 u. u-, O -O < .s uJ U o T3 .HP c --Z H -c E i3 ö3 o X n -, PL, ÖÖ Uh X““s to 4> -G u-s i G 4-1 tJ- O co u. c vo 4-1 4> Cu to u- 4> d O CU Cu g cu rt 4> 03 > •G r* O -Q U 03 rt u rr> U 4-4 rt «3 o rt - 'Ö ro -g .2- S .5 S Cu . 3 D- O E *§ o, a Cu 4) tO 5 . u* S «5 'S b 'S 4) r-< .2 ja " ÖD 4) jy ju Ö ,*j G ~ .X K ’ »u rr> rt CO rt > rt CU to rt Ui G C "d x « rt 4) rt u_* rt C -G U .SP ^3 *G G -G u co •S CJ 'So rt u ^5 G r-i *rt (5 M *c o U j 3 u -G w vT 3 CG o E r- ,0 5 H oo ^4 G -C ~ u v« .G F ^ -r o 4-* U 4-» a: u - ÖD Öß I r cu 2 S C ÖD < -C ^ ^ THE GREAT MIRACLE OF QRÄVASTI PL. XXI M :.;v - • ^ *V 5Sf SV&VC& Vi'/V IV ■' 'LJ PLATE XXII Cf. pp. 163-6, 255 £ .« y *s y -C 1) J2 y -fl 73 y o -3 d -fl u o Es 73 3 o *—» w ca r» fr.» o 73 ~ca u O y V» 4/ > o w u 0> o er o~ 73 £ OJ u C ca y 73 _o u * u ca > fl y y -fl 73 JZ < 2 73 ca -fl 3J U 0 6 -3 3 y 73 M CT\ rj 75 Cl t) u w C y fl y 73 73 U y o fr-1 w w iJ ca C *5ß vT *-» CL u ca cL ca- -C 4—» "fl fl u V U > ca (L) -fl fr-» o "fl 4-1 "u 3 c 73 y w ca 3 ca -fl £ O 1) Jfl -3 fr-» u •J ’O , ifei ca fr-i 73 u 0) 4> -fl -O -fl *75 >3 -O y ' H -fl u * *- ^ y ° tl V "fl >> S S)-° ' .b J3 -S. rt LÜ 'S 65 y= ^ . cn i Oß * T"! "fl ! .5 -c ^ss . 2 _ c i "> a ° , t/ r « "3 ! SS 4> C3 1 -C <« « ; -t 3 2 i> ! -a £ w | 3 2 “ ! « 13 " - g M <3 i H j? ^ S I y .3 73 y -fl o M -fl U O £ u frj <-» £ > 7) ca ca ca c jy 'S, -C 73 >> ca u -fl -fl 3 ca y > y u y fl- ,s CQ u y *ea 2 O, 73 bß 73 07 onthe left Avalokite^vara holds a padma. Garlands hang down ; it rains flowers. (Cf. above, pp. i6$-6). PL. XXII V«i *..*x >• 1 ■>*-■ i. ., v £ >fjA* :a-v •■• ItT -. /Vrfc*. t /;rc. ■ > -> •> .&T#' «,-SS; SkS? «SSS® ■zm* Mm RSK-Sär p&iel ms? tmQ mma .SBC» PLATE XXIIF. aß .y bp Cxo bß 1» bß - Sd Cu > «30 - ° -S u bf) op £ (J rt Q £ g T3 T3 "3 "3 C U 3 rt 3 . OQ u bß (/) J3 C rt J§ . : JV.*V: ,Wf-*5p PLATE XXIV Cf pp. 170-1, 173-4, 177 r. io mq to is iirri j.mjjlt. I. — Plate XXIV, I, represents a Stele furnished at the top with II. — Plate XXIV, 2, is a direct reproduction of part of a photo- the handle of a parasol, and at the bottom with a tenon, which must graph, the plate of which is preserved in the Calcutta museum and --- oo O •r* O >> -3 ; 43 h w rs 43 CQ .5 o i -rt t- *Ui X> CU .2 43 u s 0 and 0> 43 CU O U rt > u „_ s *-» 2 C er«, rt u-, rt o % G ,_I tJ CU -G O rt 1» 'G 00 00 Ul u C O > fe .2 0 **-» «H u 43 rt . 0 > rt ih O IS £ u X l) O rt u O c3 3 Z O 5 Z D *-> 4-1 Xf rt ca u. UH 40 T3 s V O 43 VI rt U-. O *-* Om es -C _ nci ^ . _ 1 ü — oo - I — CfeJ g rt J 3 IS OJ O O rt *3 G oÜ rt 4 > 0 -C G O rt ; 43 -X u 43 H rt j= ojj rt Ui CQ Uh O *H OJ O 4 to J 3 l O i 3 O 43 •h G . O in V G 1) u 3 OO 3 H -O rt D 0 / £ es a n ^ V3 ^4 -a js js £ CU 00 rt 0 u Uh O |H 43 M Ih 33 G Ui 'G G rt u> IH rt 43 0 00 G rt G O U 3 V) 3 Ih c O 1 •"H OJ 43 -* *-* ■5 £ G "> o -r X c g 2 " T c 2 J 5 -g .£• o, ‘ Ix >5 o .22 ü .3 4»W »?t. •*.: ,--«*.»v, ■•• r^SEl ,:-V* f-—*r -SiSfl i&fcää?r »V-*!»/'/.; upmi $***'• ;. r-tf+ jy:-' r; y**&i’*‘ - : K;ff' £ PLATE XXV Cf. pp. 171, 173-4, i 77 - I — The stele of plate XXV, 1, which comes from Loriyän-Tangai and is preserved in the Calcutta museum, measures in height one metre; it has been reproduced already by Dr. Burgess (]. lnd. Art andlnd.i no. 69, 1900, fig. 25 = Buddb. *Art in India, fig. 152) and in iArt gA. du Gandhdra, fig. 76. Here we restrict ourselves to noting the general disposition of the stele in the form of a vihdra (cf. ibid., pp. 129 and 138), the fitting of the tenon into the mortise at the base (ibid., p. 191), the little columns in the Persepolitan or Corinthian style (ibid., pp. 227 and 234), the dog-tooth ornainents, the balconies with figures of women in the different compartments (ibid,, pp. 223-224!, the Cupid garland- bearers of the lower framework (ibid., pp. 239-2^0), the lion-headed brackets similar to those of plate XXV, 2, etc. A teaching Buddha, seated on a raised lotus, is outlined against an oblong aureole and a round nimbus : above his head, a twisted garland hangs under a double Streamer; under his right foor, which is sole upwards, a knot of stutf forms a round protuberance, which is also to be seen on plate XXV, 2, but which on thefollowing plates is only a puffed out plait. The two Buddhas in the top Corners, seated in medi- tation on inverted lotuses and under little vihdras, seem to form an integral part of the composition ; perhaps the case is the same with the three others lodged under the two-storied arch of the gable; in any case, the group at the top recalls by its arrangement the other great aerial miracle, that of the Descent from Heaven. This time the two divine attendants are seated on rattan seats. The oneon the (Buddha’s) right has, unfortunately, his face and left hand broken; his feet are crossed in anattitude often reproduced later in China and Japan. The turbaned attendant on the left, leaving hissandal onthe ground (cf. Arch. Surv. Rep., 1903-1904, pl. LXVIII, b and c\, has bent up his right leg and must, as on plate XXV, 2, have rested his forehead on his hand, while at the same time he holds in his left the same looped object as does the right-hand attendant on plate XXIV, 2, — from the analogy of some newly discovered statues we should guess a bending purse. In the bottom corners two kneeling worshippers, a monk and a lay female devotee — strangers, it seems, to the scene and only inserted for a purely decorative purpose — are, perhaps, the donors, perhaps two of the usual attendants. (Cf. above, pp. 173, note r, and 173-4). II. — The original of plate XXV, 2, measuring in height m. 0,45, comes likewise from Loriyän-Tangai and is preserved in the Calcutta museum. It has already been published by Dr. Burgess IJ. Ind. ^Art and lnd., no. 69, 1900, fig. 22 = Buddh. 03C». IN GANDHARA . anar W:-& TLräi i ,•» j&ii’-' ’j "Xi-i ■ —y*» A’.:/ BM*' ■i ll'SliV. ÄL*-Cl, •Cr.' *5>; I > > »; - 4 * r , %&?■#&> mm ’S^SKÖSw«» jäm aHfa»: 5t* :-Sl v^i#ffi*«a8ifc».X'r* L>.V«'_i SWgt ' ■ - £>•• >m#e| **'*&■: •••**. SwafM« SStSSk -*• w M O ^ -Q <2 Z U i> ^ 7 * . ff E S -2 E ^ ■*> ~ Oi O f u « vn O rt V D- «= 5 5 SC •“» v; _-t to 8 W H 3 Ö O ■Ä Ü OJ OJ 8 D ~3 SD *--i CQ bo 3 -O *V S c s ^ /-v *•*» _- VTJ c (u n> O CL 8 O -C »■* "T* S ^ -Q o 1 ) ^ U -C ^ C- *** O -3 fr ß oj j: rt >-, P ►J 'S 2 C y n tfl w « J cx^ C -3 B* S C d < *- >♦ _ \ j C v- 5 D 2 1 ) 3 u >J T> £ 3 ^ w *i S J3 O W ^ « w c -g S N W 3 ct O üc a 3 * ^ 1 ) o ^ O O C s S pq u o bß THE GREAT MIRACLE OF QRAVASTI PL. XXVI 1 »‘ 11 frlnJ 1 111 tlTy» 1 I 111 . mj IN GANDHARA , jlll . •A\ * • . IM f i~ ~ .. I • V ';*w\ 7 / - <■* Tj: * -Ji- ;> il :>ib •;'•"• -Jrl-J Ti>-' I Ü 0» ’v; i > s; r * p 5 : ^, .•jvoon PLATE XXVII fc h - v ui ni Cf. pp. -i ! =i.- ... Fi The original of this plate, the exact origin of which is unknowu, is preserved in the museum at Lahore (no. 572), where we photographed it; it measures m. 0.85 in height. As yet it has been published only by Dr. Burgess (/. Ind.^Art and Ind , no. 62, 1898, pl. 8, 1). Only the middle part of the stele is devoted to the Mabd-prdtihdrya. Under the large lotus two persons, whose bodies are only half seen, but who are not otherwise characterized, and who are leaning back to look at the Master, must be the two traditional Ndga-rdjas. Above the head of the great central Buddha, which is of disproportionate size, two little genii, flying without wings, hold up a crown of jewellery under ornamental foliage. On each side appear two other small figures of Buddha, analogous to those on plate XXV, 1, and placed respec- tively beneath a Bodhisattva in the costume of a Buddhi (cf. pl. XXVI, 2) surrounded by a radiating halo, and beneath a group consisting of Buddha in conversation with a monk. The two usual attendants, Standing on lotuses with bent stems, hold up their garlands (cf. pH. XXVI and XXVIII, 1). Above them, on the right of Buddha, is Vajrapäni, bearing his thunderbolt, and having on his head a tiara often worn by Indra (cf. *Art g. b. du Gandh., fig. 246); and opposite to him, wearing a turreted crown, the nagara devatd of £rävasti (cf. above, pp. 174-5). About ten other gods are seated in various attitudes, all resting on lotuses, except those (who also have haloes) on the first row at the bottom (the four Lokaptflas, two of which on the right are damaged; cf. pl. XXVI, 2) In the top panel a sort of apotheosis of the Bodhisattva corresponds to the transfiguration of the Buddha : the former, accompanied by ten persons with h floss, is seated, with feet crossed and a water-flask in his hand, under a parasol, on a low rattan seat covered with a cushion. From numerous analogies, and notably that of a bas-relief in the Louvre, where this scene immediately follows that of the Nativity (iArtg.-b. du Gandh , fig. 164), we seem to recognize the samcodana of the Bodhisattva Siddbttrtha (La/i/a tuisfara, chap. XIII), a pendant to the adhyeshana of Buddha (ibid., chap. XXV). The point to be noted here is the close connection between the types and attitudes of the gods in the upper and low.r scenes. On each side of the Bodhisattva are th.- same garland-bearers on lotuses; at the two bottom corners are the attendants in the same attitude as on plate XXV, 2; the first atten- dant on the left at the same level is turning round to express to his neigh- bour his admiration, as on plate XXVI, 2, etc. At the bottom is depicted the adoration of the pdtra, or alms-vase of Buddha, placed on a throne (cf. Art g.-b. du Gandh., p. 419) and surrounded probably by donors. THE GREAT MIRAGLE OF QRÄVASTI PL. XXVII :* 3 S* ,twm, mmmmm mm •-S-.A-Ä* TE a ea . * . . 'eSs& A. ilTÄ r.’rst.-r 1*?s g*m 3a? >5V:-fil IN GANDHARA 24 .«a£^! - W •.%Y.OC*. .*nw 35 ;^.J?* t 8* BSSr^rS- -e.y« r vv -^V’JPt ; *&*6Ä *£*??* SV/l! £wS*y iiAATSVjfif'v, rtöss; MV;«y^6 mm e*MK ,£*iU*S ■ T ® P£v* iSTÄ*:; ßj&j »p&i !i *3w , «y | KI E ’ PLATE XXVIII O _fl « p , t /2 - « n CU.G a s rt rt « -G i> t/5 S ° rt »> 3 £ t/> ^ 1) ^ .G *—» 3 M J2 3 *"* t/5 u - ~G .3 o G rt w 3 1) .G .G »-> *2 u >-J 3 3 * .> v 3 3 3 u "3 G t/5 Wh " C/5 G o _ U> i_ 3 u 3 "2 t/5 CQ cu . O ”3 E o iS >> *1/5 S -G Tf G u. ^ CU cu ö ^ t /5 ^ c 2 Ja — ‘ U X 3 -j G p n ca w -g « 3 -r « ja £ 3 3 ^ t /5 3J 3 — ^ -Ö 1 ) 1 ) -G -G *Q_ *G ö. -> 3 n CU £ rt b£ 3 3 G O C 4 —» C /5 O- rt t/T 3 3 u 1 ) w 3 rt 'G rt c t-> .2 T3 TJ 'S 1 g U w w ’tj c u G Q- rt c rt 3 ' Wh ”3 3 t /5 3 L> rt w ts G o t_i s bß o rt O bß j 2 3 o bß M t /5 3 "3 H ■ H "^5 t /5 G 3 4 J rt *3 G rt z KJ 1 ) -G Wh crown 3 4 -J .5 3 Lh rt o -G G Lh 3 CU are s! 3 > o -O rt >5 _o 3 rt-H > G ►5 G e rt C u JD "3 CQ rt 0 > -C D G 'G G rt 'w O £ 4 -* 3 -G 4 -< Wh o > X! X '-0 rt -G 3 3 rt 1 ) 4 H rt " 5 - Irt CJ o OS D -ci i U -3 Her O 1 > to > -C y 4-* 3 _Q rt bß rt /-~S (S t /5 rt J 3 3 4—* rt 3 3 3 rt s G O m. I, by M. CQ u. Q -3 H this. rt J 3 4 h* rt D 3 > O -G < size, 1 u G 3 G CS CU *3 3 3 CQ ~cu c ing B tion 1 3 t /5 o rt rt .e* b Ü Q Q Q Q Q Q Q oo < < < < < < < h* I I I "I I i ' I bß rt «-G O-! - 1) D , n Öß"I rt C 5« G *r bß £ n = * o rt bß w ‘ ß >-» "O C3 4> G M <-» u t> c9 O 'S O „ £ c CQ S ö {> t/J O r- ß 1 » 'S c ° 5 « ,G 'a © .5 o > CU o rt rc o t: « n rt ^ x D v. bß vS ^ 2 o P m Ui « «, § ü -p 2 CQ O SO o r = : 3 - £ K .2. 3 o H < cd aa JQ O U. w U X CS C3 g 1> 4-i ’S i ! r? > 0J o u c jt ■¥» X < 'G 0> r* o X X! U G cf w u> 1 <0 f o O £ O w Ui CU X X X X X x x * x x 'J 3 3 .2 - 3 r\ D rt _o 2S rt rt »■"< T3 % -g « -G O 3 rt ü oL ° * -ß c rt ~ Q- D •> E a O rt "3 u cr3 4> I > «-H t3 O GO C ß o &x> > G 2 O G - x> jr _c bß p .25 £ .2 ä 3 < ahkufas in their hands. THE GREAT MIRAGLE OF QRÄVASTI The Six-Tusked Elephant : An attempt at a chronological Classification of the various versions of the Shaddanta-Jdtaka ('). The close relation which exists between the written and the figured forms of the Buddhist tradition has no longer to be proved. It is known by experience. Rare indeed are those narratives of Buddha’s miracles whereof no illustra- tion has yet been discovered; still more rare are the images which do not at once find their commentary in the texts already published. Andthus we have naturally cometo speak of the help which, on numerous details of exegesis, the texts and monuments reciprocally lend (*). All the same, it is to be observed that until now we have principally made use of the first to explain the second. In fact the two sorts of documents seem to be unequally matched : and the muteness of the stones will never, in the estima- tion of philologists, be able to equal (as regards the extent and variety of the information which can be derived front them) the verbosity of the writings. However, there is one point in which the sculptures have an advantage over the manuscripts, namely the permanent fixity of their testi- mony. Such as they were when they left the hands of the (1) Extract from Melanges Sylvain Lcvi, Paris, 1911. (2) Cf. Um liste indicnne des Actes du Buddha in the Annuaire de l’£cole pra- tique des Hautes Btudcs, Section des Sciences rcligieuses, 1908, a paper of too technical a character to be translated here. i86 THE SIX-TUSKED ELEPHANT workman, such are they still to-day ; or at least, if they are likewise subject to mutilations and susceptible, strictly speaking, of being counterfeited, noattempt at rifacimento or interpolation, that scourge of Indian literatures, could in their case pass unperceived. Guaranteed against the insidious address of the diasceuasts, they are equally so against the individual fancy of their own authors, who are forcibly restrained by the material conditions of their technique. It results from this that they can be arranged with perfect assurance in chronological Order and dated with a suflicient approximation. It is in this sense that we are able to say with Fergusson, that « in such a coun- try as India, the chisels of her sculptors are ...immeasu- rably more to be trusted than the pens of her authors (*) ». It is in virtue of this advantage that the figured versions seem to us able in their turn to render some Service to the written accounts of the same legend. In short, after having so often applied the textsto the interpretation of the monuments, we should like on this occasion to essay the application of the monuments to the chronology of the texts. I For this purpose we will direct our attention to a cele- brated legend, which, however, it may not be useless brief- ly to recall to the reader, that of the « elephant with six tusks » (Skt. Shaddanta, Pali Chaddanta , Chinese Lieu ya siang ). Of course, this marvellous animal was none other than one of the innumerable past incarnations of our Buddha; and (i) Fergusson, History of Indian and Eastern Arcbiitcture , Preface to the first edition, 1876, p. vm (2' 1 edit., 1910, p. x). THE SIX-TUSKED ELEPHANT 187 he lived, happy and wise, in the Company of his two wives and of his troop of subjects in a hidden valley of the Himälayas. However, the second wife, wrongly believing herseif slighted for love of the first, gives herseif up to death in an access of jealous fury, making a vow one day to avenge herseif upon her husband for his supposed want of affection. In the course of her succeeding existence she becomes, thanks to some remnant of merit, queen of Benares, and possesses the gift of remembering her pre- vious birth. She astutely obtains from the king permission to despatch against her former husband the most skilful hunter in the country, with Orders to kill him and bring back his tusks as a proofof the success of his mission. The man does, in fact, succeed at great risk of his life in strik- ing the noble elephant with a deadly arrow. But the soul of the Bodhisattva is inaccessible to any evil passion : not content with sparing his murderer, he voluntarily makes a present of the tusks whereof the man had come to rob him. When the hunter finally brings backto the queen this mourn- ful trophy, she feels her heart break at the sight of it. Such is this touching story, reduced to its essential and most generally reported features : for it is known under multiple forms. We know, in particular, that it appears in the Pali collection of the Jätaka (n° 514). Since 1895 M. L. Feer has compared with this text, point for point, the Sanskrit account in the Kalpadrumävadäna and two Chinese editions, taken, the one from the Lim tu tsi king (Nanjio, n° 143) and the other from the Tsapao tsang king (Nanjio, n° 1329); but, with perhaps excessive prudence, he was careful not to draw any conclusions from this detailed comparison ('). More recently the translation of (i) Journal Asiatique , Jan.-Feb. 1895. For the Version of the Kalpadrumd - i88 THE SIX-TUSKED ELEPHANT the Süträlankära of Acvaghosha, so excellently rendered by M. Ed. Huber from the Chinese of Kumarajiva, has made accessible to us a new and most important Version ( * l 2 3 ). Finally, a publication by M. Ed. Chavannes hasplaced at the disposal of Indianists generally both a complete transla- tion of the two texts quoted by M. L. Feer, and also a translation of the corresponding passage of the Ta che tu luen (Nanjio, n° 1169), ascribed to Nagärjuna Q. So much for the literary sources of our study ( ä ). If we now turn to the works of art, we observe that we have been no less fortunate in having preserved to us at the same time a medallion from Barhut ( 4 ), another from Amarävati ( 5 ), a lintel from Sänchi ( 6 7 ), a fragment of a frieze from GandhäraQ, and finally two frescoesfrom Ajantä, the one vadäna, cf. the Sanskrit Ms. 27, fol. 232 v°-240 v° of the Biblioth^que Nationale and Raj. Mitra, The Sanskrit Buddhist Literature of Nepal, pp. 301- 303. — We refuse to take intoaccount the commentary of vv. 26-27 of the Dhammapada, which, as Mr. Feer also remarks, has scarcely any feature in common with the Shaddanta legend. (1) Ed. Huber, Süträlankära , Paris, 1908, ch. XIV, n° 69, pp. 403 sqq. (2) Ed. Chavannes, Cinq Cents contes et apologues extraits du Tripitaka chi- nois, three volumes (1911). The story n° 28 (I, p. 101) represents the passage in question from the Lieu tu tsi king; the two other extracts willappear in vol. IV. Strictly one might connect with it the story n° 344, which also presents the characleristic trait of the gift of the tusks, but in quite different surroundings. We are happy to take this opportunity of thanking M . Chavannes, whose great kindness permitted us to make use of the relevant pages of his work prior to publication. (3) As to n° 49 (notvet published in the Bibi. Indica ) of the Bodhisalivä- vadämkalpalatä, we eite it merely for record : for this narrative is missing from the only ms. (Sanscrit 8) of the Biblioth^que Nationale (see below, p. 204, n. 1). (4) A. Cunningham, Stupa of Barhut, 1879, pl. XXVI, 6. (5) J. Burgess, Buddhist Stupas of Amaravati and Jaggayyapeta, 1887, pl.XIX, 1. (6) Rear face of the middle lintel of the Southern gate; cf. J. Fergusson, Tree and Serpent Worship, 2 d ed., 1873, pl. VIII. ( 7 ) drt greco-bouddhique du Gandhära , fig. 138 (fragment of the counter- THE S 1 X-TUSKED ELEPHANT 189 in Cave X, and the other in Cave XVII (*). The Identification of these bas-reliefs and of these paintings is fortu- nately no longer matter for reconsideration, except, perhaps, in detail( * 1 2 * 4 ). From the very factthat the meaning of these images has once for all been recognized, they have taken their place side by side with the texts in the capacity of independent and trustworthy witnesses to the divers forms which the legend has successively assumed. Alto- gether we find ourselves in possession of no less than twelve versions, of which six are provided by artand six by literature. These twelve versions are, if we may say so, so many successive « stages » of the tradition : the precise problem is to classify these various stages in their chrono- logical Order. We must admitthat, if we were reduced solely to the his- torical data relative to the texts, the enterprise would be almost desperate. Itis easy to contest the orthodox belief, according to which the stanzas of the Jätaka all feil from the lips of Buddha himself; it is much less easy to replace it by more satisfactory assertions concerning the exact time of the composition of these gäthäs, which are certainly very ancient, more ancient at times than Buddhism. Their com- mentary ( atthakathä ), according to the confession even of the monks of Ceylon, has existed under its present form march of a staircase, derived from the hill of Karamär; Lahore Museum, n° 1156). (1) Ajantä, Cave X : J. Griffiths, The Paintings in the Buddhist Cave- temples of Ajantd, 189 6, I, pl. 41 and fig. 21 ; cf. J. Bdrgess, Notes on the Buddha Rock-temples of Ajantd, 1879, pl. VII, 2, and Arch. Survey of Western India, IV, pl. XVI. — Cave XVII, Griffiths, ibid. fig. 73 and pl. 63. (2) Cf. for example, infra, p. 194, n. 1 and p. 195. The majority of the published descriptions are in errcr in speaking of more than one hunter : it is, of course, question of the same individual, represented in various atti- tudes and at different moments. 190 THE SIX-TUSKED ELEPHANT only since the V th Century A. D.; but in their view this could only be the translation into Pali of a prose which was quasi-contemporaneous with the verses (‘). Of the Kalpadnimdvaddm all that we can say without impru- denceis that this versified amplification does not bear the marks of high antiquity. As to the dates at which the Chinese translations were made and which, according to the information kindly communicated by M. Chavannes, extend from the end of the III rd Century to that of the V th of our era, they naturally can furnish us only with a terminus ad quem. Thus, as far as the texts are concerned, practically every extrinsic element of chronological Classification is lacking. Happily we are a littlebetter served, as regards the images. Each of these forms part of a whole to which either votive inscriptions or technical considerations permit us to assign a determinate epoch. It is established that the bas-reliefs of Barhut and ofSänchi go back to the II nd orI st Century B. C. (*). Those of Gandhära and of Amarävati are by common accord attributed to the 1“ or II nd of our era ( 1 2 3 ). It is to the same epoch at the latest that, on the strength.of the inscriptions and the style, Messrs. Burgess and Griffiths ascribe the archaic paintings of Cave X at Ajanta : on the other hand, the same authorities bring the decoration of Cave XVII down to the beginning of the VI th Century ( 4 ). Certainly these are only approximate dates : but it is a good thingto have even so much, and we must consider ourselves fortunate, if we succeed, by using (1) Cf. Rhys Davids, Buddhist Birth-Stories, 1880, Introduction, pp. 1-11. (2) See above, pp. 4, 34, 67. (3) Cf. Art greco-bouddhique du Gandhära, p. 42. (4) For the « Cave X » see Griffiths, loc. cit., pp. 5 and 32; Borgess, Notes, p. 50; for the « Cave XVII » Griffiths, ibid., p. 5; Burgess, ibid ., p. 61 (cf. p. 57). THE SIX-TUSKED ELEPHANT 191 these figured monuments as so many land-marks, in dating some of our texts with a similar degree of approximation. Nay, were we not able to call to our aid these hitherto unutilized auxiliaries, it would be wiser to surrender in advance every attempt at historical Classification. II Certainly we should not for that reason remain com- pletely disarmed before the confused mass of these often divergent versions; and it would be our part to introduce — byrecourse, for want of anything better, to some internal principle of coordination —an Order at least theoretical. It is indeed the favourite occupation of folklorists thus to draw up genealogical trees of what they have decided to call « families of tales ». But, if the enterprise is possible, and the pastime permissible, it goes without saying that the result can be of value only upon a double condition, namely that we shall have known how to choose the topical detail which must act as main-spring for the estab- lishment of the series, and that we shall have well observed and followed out, in the arrangement of this series, the natural course of human affairs. Now, in the case of the Shaddanta-jätaka we are in no wise puzzled to discover at once the characteristic trait and the way in which to use it. It is a well recognized law that successive versions of narratives of this kind have a tendency continually to outdo each other in the direction of increasing edification. The usual effect of this piousinclination is, let us say in passing, to destroy by degrees the whole sah of the story together with its probability and its ingenuousness, while substitu- ting for it compositions whose insipidity is sweetened to 192 THE S 1 X-TUSKED ELEPHANT the point of nausea. Nevertheless there is no religious liter- ature, and the Buddhist less than any other, which, its original raciness once evaporated, escapes this deplorable and fatal invasion of Convention and artificiality. Now what, in the theme with which we are at present concerned, is the essential point, wherein exactly its edification lies? In Order that we may not be accused of choosing arbitrarily and to suit the necessities of the case, let us appeal to the Lalitavistara , which happens to sum it up in a verse (*) : at the time of his previous birth as the elephant Shaddanta (it is the Gods themselveswho subsequentlyremindthe Bodhi- sattva, in order to encourage him to follow his vocation) « thou didst sacrifice thy teethof dazzlingbeauty,butmoral- ity was saved. » This is indeed the point of the story, which has caused it to be ranged under the category of the « perfection of morality », or better, « of goodness » ( s ) : it is the surrender by the elephant of his beautiful ivory tusks, as sanction to the pardon granted to the hun- ter who has just mortally wounded him. But there is more than one way of returning good for evil, and it can be done with more or less good grace. In this particular case the virtuous elephant might have limited himself to allowing his enemy to work his will; or, better, he might have facilitated the Operation for him ; or finally, which quite attains to the sublime, he might have done the deed himself for the advantage of his murderer. It is evidently (1) Lalitavistara , ch. XIII, 40; ed. Lefmann, p. 168, 1 . 9 : Parityaji te ruci- rafubhadanlä na ca tyaji (ilam. — Naturally it is this sarne point that is emphasized in the rdsum6 of Hiuan-tsang to which reference will be made below, p. 199. (2) Qila-p&ramita : this is the Classification of the introduction to the Jataka (ed. Fausb^ll, I, p. 45 ; trans. Rhys Davids, p. 55) and of the Lieu tu tsi hing (Chavannes, Cinq ccnts contes, I, pp. 97 sqq.). THE S1X-TUSKED ELEPHANT 193 in the order of this increasing generosity that, in theory, the various versions will have to be classified. In fact, if we recur to the written accounts which have been preserved to us, we remark that the protagonist adopts in turns one or other of these attitudes at the culminating moment of the narrative : « Rise, hunter, take thy knife (khura, Skt. kshura), and cut from me these teeth before I die », is the extent of w T hat the elephant says in stanza 31 of the Jätaka ; and his interlocutor does not let him repeat the invitation. The Lieu tu tsi hing considers it only right to add a little moral homily. But with the prose commen- tary of the Jätaka things become more complicated. The animal has attained a size so monstrous, that it is only with great difficulty that the man succeeds in raising himself up to the root of its tusks, and even there, though instead of the hatchet of a savage (the use of which would, in fact, have been disastrous to the ivory) he now uses a more perfect instrument, the saw ( kakaca , Skt. krakaca'), he vainly exhausts himself with cruel effbrts: his victim himself must come to his aid. In order to make things more pathetic, the monastic editor does not recoil before the most flagrant contradictions. The elephant is already so weak that he cannot raise his silver trunk to take hold of the saw ; and he has to call all his senses together, in order to beg the hunter to give him the handle of it; after which — as it is generally agreed that the Bodhisattva is by his very nature endowed with supernatural strength — he in- stantly saws through his two tusks (for here (') they are no more in number than two), like the tender stems of a (1) M. L. Feer ( [loc. eit. p. 50 and p. 77, note 1) has observed thesame thing in the Kalpadrumävadäna^in spite of the persistence in the title of the traditional name of « six-toothed »; but it is to be noticed that the Word 194 THE SIX-TUSKED ELEPHANT plantain! In the Kalpadrumdvadäna , the Ta che tu luen (which besides is simply a very summary resume) and the Tsa pao tsang hing , the hero does not even trouble him- self to borrow from his murdereranyinstrumentwhatever: he himself breaks off his tusks, according to the first two accounts against a rock, according to the third against a big tree. ßut to the Süträlankära belongs the palm for spon- taneity in the action of the martyr : it is simply « by slip- ping his trunk round his teeth » that this time the elephant pullsthem out, not without pain or grief, while the hunter respectfully waits for him to present them expressly to him. Furtherthan this it is impossible to go. Thus,then, we obtain a first Classification ofall our texts. Theoretically it is unassailable; practically we must not form any illusions as to its historical value. If notwithstand- ing we proceed to arrange the figured monuments according to the same criterion, the chances ofarrivingby their interventionataless conjectural result assume immediately a better aspect. In fact we are not long in perceivingthat the Order thus obtained co'incides exactly with that already forced upon us by the purely archaeological data. At the head ofthem there always comes, in its sim plicity, the me- dallion of Barhut: on theleft the hunter, having put down his bow and arrows, sets about cutting off the elephant’s tusks with a rüde saw ('). The latter has kindly crouched danta occurs in the text very frequently in the plural and not in the dual. On the other hand, it is unfortunately impossible to know what was said on this particular point by texts of which we no longer possess more than the Chinese translation. (i) See above, p. 39. Perhaps it is worth while to remark that, in the Barhut Version, the cause of the drama is evidently the same as in the Lieu tu tsi kinv , that is, the gift of a lotus to the first wife, if at least, as is said in the Kalpadrumwvadäna, she did not receive two, one to decorate each of her temples. This reason is cited by the prose commentary of the Jätaka THE S1X-TUSKED ELEPHANT 195 down to further the wishes ofhis enemy and to renderhis task less difficult(pl.XXIX, 1). ThecaseisthesameinGan- dhära and at Amarävati, where in addition we see represen- ted the episode of the hunter hiding in a ditch, in Order to wound the elephant in the stomach with an arrow (pll. XXIX, 2 and XXX, 1). The fresco of Cave X of Ajantä shows us likewise, in the words of Mr. Griffiths ( loc . cit., p. 32), « the huge six-tusked elephant lying down and a hunter engaged in cutting off the six tusks ». It is, as a matter of fact, six tusks — more or less distinctly sepa- rated, but always carefully noted — thatthe elephant has in all these representations, except that from Gandhära. But, when we pass on to the painting of Cave XVII, the picture is changed : « the huge white Elephant King », says Mr. Griffiths ( [ibid ., p. 37), is Standing, « with only one tusk, upon which he rests his trunk, while a man kneels and makes profound obeissance before him ». In reality (cf. pl. XXX, 2), the elephant, to whom the artist no longer lends more than histwo normal teeth, has already torn out one, and is about, as it is written in the Sütrdlankära, to twist his trunk round the second, in Order to pull that out in its turn. And during this time the hunter, in adoration before him, awaits the accomplishment ofthe magnanimous sacrifice. There is, as we see, a striking parallelism of development between our two kinds of documents ; and it is continued from one end to the other of the two series. If nowwe bring the two liststogether, we obtain, always only as a subsidiary one : of the first, a very ingenious one, that he advances, — and according to which the great elephant one day, unintentionally, by shaking a (3.1a tree in full blossom, caused to fall on his second wife, who was Standing to windward, only twigs of wood, dry leaves, and red ants, while the first, who was to the leeward, received flowers, pollen and green shoots— there is no morequestion at Barhut than in the texts, except this particular commentary. 196 THE SIX-TUSKED ELEPHANT by virtue of the same principle and by the simple intercala- tion of the various versions (') in the position respectively belongingto them, thefollowing combination : I. Stanzas of the Päli Jätaka : The bunter cuts off the ieetb with a kttife. II. Medallion of Barhut (II nd Century B. C.) : The bunter cuts off the elephanfs teeth with a saw. III. Medallion of Amarävati j IV. Fresco of Ajantä, CaveX ( pt-und Century A. D. : V. Counter-step of Gandhära ) The same Version as at Barhut. VI. Lieu tu tsi king (trans. by Seng-houei, d. 280): The same Version (the Instrument is not speciffed). VII. Prose Commentary of the Jätaka (rendered into Päli in the V th Century) : The ekphant himself saws oß bis teeth. VIII. Kalpadrumävadäna : The elephant himself breaks off bis teeth against a rock. IX. Ta che tu luen (trans. by Kumärajlva between 402 and 405) : The same Version as in the Kalpadrumävadäna. X. Tsa pao tsang king (trans. by Ki-kia-ye and T’an yao in 472) : The elephant himself breaks oß his teeth against a tree. XI. Süträlankära (trans. into Chinese by Kumärajiva towards 410) : The elephant himself pulls out his teeth with his trunk. XII. Fresco of Cave XVII of Ajantä (VI th Century) : The same Version as in the Süträlankära. (1) It will be noticed that the final list differs slightly from that which we drew up at the beginning of this study. On the one hand, we have had to leave aside the lintel at Sänchi, which, treated too decoratively, did not supply us with any information upon the precise point which we are now considering; on the other hand, the tenor of the commentary of the Jätaka has shown itself so divergent from that of the text that we have had to divide this source into two. On the whole, then, we always reckon twelve versions, five artistic and seven literary. THE SIX-TUSKED ELEPHANT 197 III Such as it is, the chronological table thus obtained is at least worthy of being taken into consideration; and the hope occurs to us that wemay have restored, inaccordance withthe natural play of the religious conscience, the different phases of the evolution of the story. In fact, it is not that we have thus arbitrarily arranged all the accessible documents : it is they, which, when interrogated on a definite, Capital point, have spontaneously and without any violence or solicitation on our part, arranged themselves in the order indicated above. As far as the images are concerned, this series is not only in conformity with their historic succession on the whole : it takes into account, in a surprising manner, their proximity as well as their aloofness in time, grouping together at the beginning the four which resemble each other, and reserving the sole variant to quite at the end. Then, as regards the texts, the impression of confidence and security, which arises from this spontaneous Classification, would be still further increased, if we made our inquiry apply equally to such or such other accessory episodes of the legend. It is not, in- deed, the manner of giving the tusks only, it is a whole group of concomitant details, which concur in determining theoretically, for one who knows how to read them, the Order of priority of the various narratives. Take the one which comes at the head of the list, that is, the rhymed account of the Jätaka ; you will observe that there every- thing takes place in accordance with the customary rules of elephant-hunting. The hunter hides in a ditch; at the cry of the wounded animal all his companions flee; remain- ing alone in the presence of the man, the elephant ad- vances to kill him : the fact that it stops on recognizing on 198 THE S 1 X-TUSKED ELEPHANT him the colour of the monastic coat is the sole sign of the Buddhist adaptation of the bailad. Beginning with the Lieu tu tsi hing (n° 6), it is no longer sufficient that the clothes of the hunter should be naturally of a reddish- brown, like those of that hunter (‘) from whom Buddha formerly borrowed his first monk’s coat : henceforward the man will deliberately disguise himself as a monk, in order to inspire confidence in his prey. But, since he now employs this infallible means of approaching within easy reach, there is no longer need for him to hide in ambush : and in fact, beginning with the Kalpadrumävadäna (n° 8), he ceases to have recourse to this obsolete proceeding. At the same time, as he has approached openly, it will be necessary that by a refinement of pity his victim should defend him against the vengeance of his first wife, if not from the rest of the herd : this is what the Bodhisattva fails not henceforth to do (n° 9-11). Soon — with n° 10 — scruples are aroused in the mind of the hunter, thus pro- tected : he no longer dares to lay his sacrilegious hand on the tusks of the « Great Being », for fear that it may fall from his body. Finally, in the Sütrdlankdra (n° 11), to these interested fears is added a real and too legitimate repen- tance. Thus is seen how a striving after increased edifi- cation has by degrees modified a whole concordant assem- blage of details : and so it is not, as might be imagined, for an isolated reason, but by a whole sheaf of proofs, if we had time to consider them more closely, that the order of the preceding table would be justified. (1) And doubtless, of all people of low caste : for the costume ofhis order of mendicant brothers Buddha would quite naturally have chosen the coar- sest material of the cheapest colour. At least we do not see that the tradition relative to the käshäya, if it had any meaning, can at the bottom signify anything eise. For its variations in form cf. also Art greco-bouddbique du Gart- dhära, p. 369. THE S 1 X-TUSKED ELEPHANT 199 Does this mean that we must blandly accept for the known documents all its features, and that, on the other hand, in order to fix the date of every new Version, it will be sufficient to refer it to the corresponding degree on this chronological scale? In the case of afigured monument we should be rather inclined to believe so, provided that it is upon inquiry verified whether by chance it were not a case of some more or less archaizing imitation. As soon as it is a text that is concerned, the question becomes much more delicate, and from the very beginning we fall again into our difficulties. For the most part the table furnishes us with nothing more than simple presumptions, and these need still to be correctly interpreted. It affirms, for exam- ple, that the Süträlahkära represents the state of the legend current from the V lh Century of our era ; and of this fact we have, in truth, two indisputable proofs. The one, of an artistic order, is thefresco of Cave XVII of Ajantä (VI‘ h Century). The other, literary, but by a happy chance dated exactly as belonging to the second quarter of the VII th Century, is nothing less than a passage from Hiuan-tsang : the story of the Shaddanta, gathered by the great pilgrim at Benares, is, as M. S. L£vi has already pointed out in his admirable article on the Süträlahkära et ses sources, « an exactand faithful r£sum6 of the story of Afvaghosha »(')• What are we to deduce from these Statements ? As the name of the author scarcely allows us to bring the work lower down than the II nd Century of our era, must we has- (1) Cf. M. S. Levi, Afvaghosha, h Sütrdlaükdra et ses Sources, in the Journal Asiatique, July-August 1908, p. 175- Stanislas Jüuen (I, p. 360) translates in fact : « The elephant tore out his tusks », and Watters (II, p. 53) says exactly the same. According to Beal (II, p. 49) he « broke off his tusks ». M. Chavannes admits that this second translation might literally be pos- sible : but, not to mention that the sense of 1 breaking » is given in the die- 200 THE SIX-TUSKED ELEPHANT ten to conclude, as \ve might be tempted to do, thatthe account of the « white elephant with six tusks » is only a late addition ? This story forms a part of the XIV“ 1 chapter. Now M. Ed. Huber warns us in his preface « that one of the first catalogues of the Chinese Tripitaka, the Li tai san pao hi, drawn up in A. D. 597, gives only ten chapters»to the SütrAlahkAra. Besides, we feel to what a degree this Collection oftales (which, likethat of the Jdtakamälä, must at a very early date havebeen used by Buddhist sermon-writers for the needs of their daily preachings) was ill-defended against interpolations... — This is all very well and good; and after all the thing is possible: but surely the place assig- ned to the Süträlankdra in our list by its conception of th eShaddanta-jätaka does not authorise us to conclude from it anything of the kind. What, in fact, does it prove ? That this text already contains the form which the legend had assumed in the imagination of the artist painters of the Vl th , and in the memory of the guides of the VII lh , Century. And in what way does it prevent the poetic talent of A$va- ghoshafrom having been the first toput into circulation the elaborate version which, as we have just seen, was coherent in all its parts and destined to have great success and defi- nitely to supplant the far too primitive account of the stan- zas ofthe Jätaka? Two orthree centuries may not have been too much for this literary production to become populär in its turn ; and here we find positively no peremptory reason invalidating its authenticity. The best course, with a view to the solution of this question — as of the question how far the Chinese translation is adequateto the Sanskrit origi- tionary of Couvreur as a secondary meaning, it is that of « tearing out » which corresponds to the description of the attitude in the Süträlankdra, and its representation in the fresco of cave XVII of Ajantä. THE SIX-TüSKED ELEPHANT 2«I nal — is to leave it to the future, especially now that we may hope for everything from the discoveries of manu- scripts in Central Asia Q, On the other hand, there is a point on which we believe we may already risk a categorical affirmation : we mean the manifest divergence which is seen between the Version of the verse text of the Jätaka (n° i) and thatof the prose com- mentary (n° 7). This divergence is not to-day remarked for the first time( ä ): what we have here is only one more striking experimental demonstration of it. Read afresh with reference to our list the text of Fausböll’s edition (V, pp. 37 sqq.), and you will quickly perceive that theedi- tor of the commentary in its present form knew a state of the legend analogous to that reflected in the works numbered 8 to 11 ; that, if he did not follow these latter right to the end, it was because he was hindered at each moment by his text, whose ancient particulars held him back, nolens volens, on the incline down which he asked nothing better than to glide; and that finally he applied himself as well as he could to inserting between the lines of the ancient story Ornaments borrowed from the later legend. Henceforth you will hold the secret of the stränge liberties which he takes with the letter of the stanzas;and you will have only to note point by point, as they occur, the most flagrant of his offences. You will smile at the palpable cunning with which, from the first line (p. 37,1. 1), he transfers the name of the elephant, Chaddanta, to the lake near which the latter dwells, and a (1) It is known that Prof. Lüders has already announced the discovery offragments (still unedited) of the Sanskrit text of the Süträlahkara. (2) It is sufficient to refer here to Prof. Lüders in Göttingische Gelehrte Nachrichten, 1897, p. 119, and M. E. Senart’s article on Les Abhisambud- dhagathas in the Journal Asiatique, May-June 1901, pp. 385 sqq. 16 202 THE S1X-TUSKED ELEPHANT little further (p. 41,1. 23) glosses his « six tusks » by «two tusks of six colours »; for you know that the latest mode was to ascribe to him only one pair. Where the good monk will perhaps seem to go rather far, is when he translates khura by kakaca (p. 52, 1. 9), and unblushingly essays to make you believe that knives are saws, in other words, that chalk is cheese. But soon you will content yourself with shrugging your shoulders before this stränge and system- atic perversion of the text which he was supposed to interpret; the fact is that you read his hand in advance and see why, before allowing the hunter to descend into the ditch specified by stanza 23, he believes it necessary to clothe him in the käshäya of a monk (p. 49,1. 8); why, when according to stanza 24 the whole troop is scattered tothe a eight Cardinal points », he considersit more suitable to detain by the side of the wounded one at least his faith- ful wife (p. 50, 1. 9); why, a few lines further down, he has her brutally driven away, for fear she should punish the assassin (p. 50, 1 . 19), etc. And when finally to stanza 32 — which States merely that the hunter took his knife, cut off the elephant’s tusks, and departed— he openly opposes (p. 52) the absurd and pathetic account which we have already analysed('), the measureis heaped up and the cause decisively heard. If the gäthäs have all the characteristics of an ancient populär plaint, which the barbarity of the pro- ceeding employed by the hunter to get possession of the ivory forces us to declare anterior to the Barhut medallion, (1) See above.p. 193. —It on all these points we have not referred to vol. V of the English translation carried out under the direction of Professor Cowell, it isbecausethe metric Version of Mr. W. Francis (either through blind con- fidence in the commentary or on account of the necessities of the rhyme) seems to regard it as a duty to palliate all the divergencies between the prose and the verse. Thus it is that the beginning of stanza 32 becomes on page 29 : « The hunter then the tusks did saw » etc. THE S1X-TUSKED ELEPHANT 203 that is to say, to the II* d Century B. C., it is no less evident that their atthakathä was not merely translated into Pali, but also accommodated to the taste of the titnes by a cleric ©f the V th Century of our era. It is a chasm of at least seven centuries that opens before our eyes between texts which at times some persons have desired to believe contempo- raneous. Thus, whether we arrive at simple points of interroga- tion or at real certainties, according to the case, it is worth while to take note of these first results. It is well known that in matters of chronology the Indianist is accustomed to be satisfied with very little. He can no longer neglect the dataafforded by a comparison of the texts and the mo- numents, wherever they lend themselves to it. We have certainly chosen a relatively favourable specimen for our attempt : but as regards more than one jdtaka, and even more than one miracle of Buddha, it would already be possible to draw up a table analogous to that whose spon- taneous generation we have just encouraged. We may au- gure that these studies in detail, in proportion as excava- tions and new editions supply their constituent elements, will come to each other’s aid, and that by a series of tests chronological data will in the end become more and more precise.From that time it would no longer beof such or such a particular episode, but of the whole Buddhist legend that we should succeed in distinguishing the successive States. If it is permissible even to print prognostica- tions which are still so vague, we should be very much surprised if we did not see reproduced, in a general way, the fact dominating the present list of the versions of the Sbaddanta-jdtaka.ln fact, it is self-evident that these latterdi- vide nearly equally into two large groups, profoundly divergent from one another, between which the Singhalesecom- 204 THE SIX-TüSKED ELEPHANT mentator of the Jätaka vainly endeavoured to construct a bridge. The six first are closely connected with the old native tradition : the five last proceed no less unanimously from a new spirit, which probably filtered into India through its north-west frontier, as a result of foreign invasions. Thus, thistablewould be before all an excellent illustration of the « crisis » which a succession of great political upheavals at last, a short time after the beginning of our era, provoked in the Indian conscience, and which has already been described in a masterly fashion, byM. Sylvain L£vi, writing of A^vaghosha ( (i) * * 4 ). (i) Loc. cit., pp. 73-74. — Since the above article was mitten Prof. Rapson has been so good as to have copied by one of his pupils. Mr. W. H. B. Thompsoh, under his direction and for our use, the Version of the Shaddantävadäna from the Bodhisattvävadäna-kalpalalä, which is lacking in the Paris ms. (cf. above, p. 188, n. 3), according to the mss. Add. 1)06 and yry in the University Library at Cambridge. The kind communication of this copy has enabled us to prove the identity of this Version — with the exception of three interpolations — with t’nat of the Kalpadrumävadäna. It appears that the author of the latter Collection restricted himself to repro- ducing, without however (in any way) informing the reader of the fact, the work of Kshemendra, except that on two points he has lengthened the narrative of his predecessor, which in his opinion was too much abbrevia- ted. This fact, however unexpected it may be, naturally does not change anything in our conclusions, as far as concerns the general chronology of the successive forms of the legend : it only causes us to think that the Kal- padrumävadäna and Bodhisattvävadäna-kalpalatä agree in preserving for us the Version of the canon of the Müla-Sarvästivädins, which, as we know (cf. above, p. 151, n. 2), usually serves as a basis for the poetic lucubrations of Kshemendra. On the other hand, it supplies us with an excellent illustration justifying the reservations expressed above concerning the chronology of the texts : here, in fact, we are dealing with a well-known author, who wrote at the beginning of the XI* Century, and who yet makes use of a Version older than that of the Süträlahkära. Thus it was wise on our part to consi- der as an acquired result only the demonstration of the difference of time between the stanzas of the Pali Jätaka and their commentary. We are happy to be able on this last point to connect with the already cited evidence of M. Senart and Professor Lüders that of Prof. Oldenberg (Nachrichten der k. Gesellschaft der Wissenschajten Göttingen , Phil.-hist. Klasse, 1911, pp. 441 sqq.). u PLATE XXIX Cf. pp. 39, 194-6. I. — From Cunningham, Stilpa of Bbarhut, pl. XXVI, 2 ; for the description cf. above, pp. 39 and 194-3. II. —From a photograph taken by the author at the Madras museum in December 1896. The number and variety of the episodes collected together on this single medallion, among trees and rocks used as frames, give it, in contrast to the simplicity of that at Baihut, an espe- ciallyentangledandconfusedappearance. — 1. On the lower part, to the right, we see the miraculous elephant with six tusks, Standing between his two queens, of whom the first, on his left, holds over his head a parasol, whilst on the right the second flourishes afly-flapper. — 2 He moves in the direction of the lotus pond, which occupies the bottom of the picture, and where we see him sporting with a numerous Company ; the apparently female pachyderm who is coming precipitately out of the pond on the left and who then seems to crouch in order to throw herseif down some precipice, would perhaps be intended to awake the remembrance of the jealous wife and her suicide? —3. Whatever may be the fact concerning this detail, the story is now continued on the right, in the upper portion of the medallion. The great elephant is depicted Standing at the moment when he crosses the fatal ditch in which lurks the hunter, whose bust only is to be seen between the animal's legs. — 4. A little more to the left the elephant, whose fore. part only is shown, is kneeling, in order that the hunter maycut off his tusks by the aid of a saw furnished with a curved spring, much more elaborate than the tool used at Barhut. — 3. Finally, right at the top, the latter carries away, on the two ends of a pole balanced on his right shoulder, the spolia opitna of the Bodhisattva. It is curious to observe that the tusks are twelve in number, six (2X3) at each end of the pole 1 Here and there indications of antelopes and deer, while lending anima- tion to the scene, only add to the crowding. THE SIXTUSKED ELEPHANT PL. XXIX AT BARHUT - *■>-' 2. — AT AMARÄVATI TT>i _ • $Sf4 s&m? sw#**? 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