国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

PLATE XXVIII

PAINTINGS FROM BEZEKLIK

Bez. xii. J—L

THIS fragment is from the wall facing A, B, C, plate xXVII, and isP art of a group of mourners at the head of the recumbent Buddha. All four are loudly lamenting. The figure on the left, in his wild demonstrations, waves aloft in his right hand a long-necked flask and in his left a leaf-shape fan.'

His robe is red with buff lining. His short hair, rising on top in a small usnisa, is

blue and trimmed in front like that of the small Buddha at I, on plate xXVII.

Bez. xii. I

Some interesting details appear in this enlargement of the upper left corner of

the picture on plate xxvii. The head of the monk shows careful study of the bony

structure. Pronounced supra-orbital ridges bulge over the seemingly lidless eyes,

with grey-green irises and the whites now oxidized to brown. The nose is rather

long and pointed, and the prominent jaws reveal a few teeth between the slightly

parted, nervous lips. Shaven head, eyebrows, and beard show a stubble of, prob-

ably, white hair, indicated by a stipple of dots, now discoloured to red. Asceticism

has reduced the flesh of neck and breast to a mere drapery of flaccid folds. The

hands, with long, pointed finger-nails, are folded in adoration as he seems to listen

in breathless ecstasy to the inspired words of the Master.

Above is a mansion which seems to stand on a tiled terrace, raised within high

walls. Although the chequered space within the walls has the appearance of tiling,

there are certain irregularities that would favour the interpretation of it as steps

or stylized rocks. Outside the walls a rather similar scheme certainly favours this

explanation. The mansion would thus be on the summit of a hill surrounded by

the wall, reached from below by steps rising in rather confused construction from

an indefinite lower level. Entrance to the enclosure is by way of a pair of solid

wooden doors, considerately ajar, for they give access to the precincts of the man-

sion, which, as the Chinese character boldly inscribed on the gable-end proclaims,

is Heaven. Scrollwork decorates the face of the wall, and a band of roundels

borders the top. At the top of the inner surface is a band of a kind of plait pattern,

familiar in early Chinese textiles. Chinese, too, is the architecture of the building,

I Cf. the figure with the same attributes in Bez. x. I, J, plate xxv.

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