National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

ri.

rather coarse features, one carrying a typical crutched stick (baírăgun), are characters

still familiar in India. Four musicians contribute to the sounds of lamentation,

with professional enthusiasm and energy. The drummer holds the drum

under his right arm and beats it with a ball-headed stick not the usual Indian

type held in his left hand. It will be seen that he has reddish hair and green eyes.

It was recorded by the Chinese pilgrim Hsüan-tsang, in the seventh century, that

the people of Khotan had green eyes, and that they were very fond of music and

dancing. May not these be an itinerant party of Khotanese performers? To the left

of the drummer the cymbal player clashes his box-like instruments above his

head. The performer whose head is missing plays a flute, the end, with the left

hand fingering the notes, being still preserved. The white-haired biwa player uses

the classical plectrum, and, like the other members of the Croup, seems to be

singing or humming. From the animated poses of the legs, especially those of the

flautist, they are all stamping or dancing in time with their music, and the old bíwa

player is clearly beating time with the great toe of his left foot. The curious, short,

fur gaiters, with no visible means of support, occur frequently in the Bezeklik

pictures and are perhaps a local fashion of the period. The whole of this section is

remarkable for its character studies, and for the natural proportions of the bodies,

a quality not found in the other pictures from this site.

In the centre panel, D, E, F, the robust but short-legged standing Buddha figure

has a lotus under each foot. He stands on a wooden raft, of Chinese make, floating

on the swirling waters of a stream perhaps the `Ocean of Existence' with

deeply eroded banks. I am diffident about describing the Buddha's dress by naming

each garment. Like those who compile cookery recipes or describe card games,

writers on costume usually succeed in creating baffling obscurity over the subject

they set out to explain. In the case of those who profess to enlighten us on the

subject of Buddhist canonical costume, confusion is increased by want of agree-

ment among the experts themselves. With the desire to avoid drawing down

upon myself similar criticism, it may be safely stated that here the Buddha

appears to wear the three canonical garments respectively called the uttarásanga, the

sangháti, and the antaravásaka; and of these the first is the outer, enveloping red robe;

the second, the blue garment showing at the breast and below the lower edge of the

first; and the third, the crimson garment falling below the blue, to the feet. It may

be that a fourth garment lies close to the body, showing its upper edge at the

breast, above the edge of the blue. This would, perhaps, be the nivásana, and is

I I

ol,

96

0