of the fifth century A.D. Among the textile relics, too, there are some to which an origin centuries older can confidently be assigned.
We have seen that the great stock of Chinese texts and documents had received additions in languages used in regions far away to the south, west and north. Something of the same kind is seen also in the case of the pictorial relics. For among those I was able to rescue from the careless keeping of the priest there are a series of pictures, mostly banners or drawings, which are unmistakably of Tibetan or Nepalese, i.e. Indian workmanship. But their number is comparatively so small by the side of the abundant pictorial remains which we may safely attribute to Chinese hands that I need not include them in this rapid survey.
I feel that for the purpose of this survey illustrations are likely to be far more helpful than any explanations or general remarks I can offer. However deep my interest in those art relics is, I cannot claim the full competence of the expert as regards the religious art of the Far East. Nor would it have been possible for me to furnish that iconographic analysis of all the varied pictorial materials which I published in my Serindia and The Thousand Buddhas, had I not enjoyed the advantage of much help and guidance from expert friends such as Mr. Laurence Binyon, of the British Museum, and the late M. Petrucci, as well as from my assistants, Mr. Fred. H. Andrews and Miss F. Lorimer.
What gives to the paintings from the Thousand Buddhas their great value for the study of Far Eastern art is the fact that they belong to the Tang period, from the seventh to the tenth century A.D., when Chinese art was at its greatest height of power, and that scarcely any genuine
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