of their celestial childhood. Two other re-born souls are seen sitting upright, but with an unconscious air, on lotuses rising from the lake in the foreground. Only passing reference can be made here to varied details of interest, such as the architecture of the double-storied pavilions rising on either side, or the small Bodhisattvas who are seen playfully seated on railings or otherwise taking their ease. The marginal scenes quite Chinese in style represent incidents of the last incarnation of Bhaishajyaguru.
But it is Amitabha's Paradise in the West which is the most popular of these Buddhist Heavens. The Bodhisattvas Avalokitesvara and Mahasthama seated by the side of the Buddha make up his regular triad. Between and below them there are seated lesser Bodhisattvas. On a projection of the terrace is seen the dancer performing between six musicians. The stole waved in her hands and the fluttering bands of her head-dress accentuate her rhythmic movement. A newly born soul seated on a lotus and about to join the celestial company floats up on either side to the terrace.
Briefest reference must suffice to two grand fragments of a silk painting (Figs. I I o, II I) which must have been intended when complete to cover the whole back of a vaulted chapel or of the aisle of an antechapel. Of the two pieces the better preserved one, on the right, even in its broken state measures fully six and a half feet in height and about three and a half feet in width. Both pieces had formed the outer wings, triptych-like, of an exceptionally large arch-shaped picture which evidently represented a Buddhist triad.
The Bodhisattva on the right is Manjusri mounted on his white lion, which a dark-skinned attendant, intended for an Indian but suggestive of a Negro type, leads. The sumptu-
IIIFカラー高解像度
