294 EXCAVATION OF BUDDHIST SHRINES [CHAP. XVIII.
To remove any portion of these interesting frescoes proved quite impracticable, owing to the friable condition of the plaster on which they were painted. Nor can it, in view of the faded state of the colours, be surprising that the photographs which I secured of them do not permit of satisfactory reproduction by any mechanical process. But drawings have been made from these as well as other photographs . of Dandan-Uiliq frescoes by the hand of my artist friend, Mr. F. H. Andrews. These, when published in my Detailed Report, will, I hope, render it easier to judge of the remarkable resemblance which, in style of composition and the drawing of figures, exists between these frescoes and the later of the Indian paintings in the cave temples of Ajanta.
Little, indeed, of early Indian painting has survived in India itself. Hence all the more interest must attach to the specimens which the frescoes and painted tablets of Dandan-Uiliq shrines have preserved for us of that selfsame Indian art as transplanted to the Buddhist region of Khotan.
IIIF Color HighRes
