CH. LXVII SCENES FROM BUDDHA'S LIFE 199
enlightenment. They show us the whole cycle of his nativity as Prince Gautama ; the miracles of his childhood and youth ; the life of pleasure in the princely seraglio ; and, after the four pathetic encounters which arouse his vocation, the flight from the palace ; the incidents which follow this renunciation of the world ; the six years of austerities ; and finally, the scene on the bank of the Nairanjana river which immediately precedes the illumination. " In short," as M. Foucher puts it, " we meet again with almost the whole catalogue of episodes which have remained classic since the Graeco - Buddhist school of Gandhara. The most important point to note is the frankly Chinese fashion in which these traditional subjects have been treated. Under the hands of the local artists they have undergone the same disguising transformation which Christian legend has under those of the Italian or Flemish painters."
The two banners reproduced in Plate vi. may serve to illustrate this interesting group of paintings. Both have lost their streamers, etc., but seem otherwise complete, except for tears and the like minor injuries. The one to the right, about two feet high in the original, shows at its bottom the straining piece of bamboo clumsily refastened, and a little higher an ancient tear, coarsely sewn up with red thread. In the upper panel we have a representation of the dream of Queen Maya, Buddha's mother, which figures in the legend concerning his conception. Below we see the queen being carried in a litter to the Lumbini garden where her son's birth was destined to take place. The rapid onward stride of the men carrying her is rendered with much skill.
Next follows the scene of Prince Gautama's miraculous birth from the side of his mother. It is pictured with scrupulous adherence to the traditional details ; but we recognize a clever device, unknown to the Gandhara models, in the graceful use made of Maya's wide sleeve to screen the first appearance of the divine babe. It is repeated in other representations of this scene and had evidently become fixed in local tradition. At the foot of the banner we see the miracle of Gautama's first steps towards his
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