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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

obvious at a glance. But it must be noted that the only Gandhâra sculpture so far known which represents a scene localized on the Vulture Peak shows the Buddha seated in a grotto of the hill."

The rigid adherence in details to a common original model which is proved in this particular case may well claim a wider importance. It must help to raise confidence in the general fidelity with which the other figures, too, in our painting Ch. xxii. 0023 may be assumed to reproduce the original images they claim to represent. In this respect we can adduce the evidence of the close parallel presented by the miniatures in certain Nepalese manuscripts of the eleventh century which illustrate, as attached legends show, various sacred images and shrines of Buddhist India. M. Foucher, who has made these miniatures the subject of a most illuminating and fruitful study, has been able conclusively to prove that their painters, in all that concerns such essential points as pose, gesture, colour, and fixed attributes of the principal figures, have always been at pains to reproduce faithfully the stereotyped models furnished by long-continued traditional imagery.15 Just as little as those Nepalese illuminators was the painter of Ch. xxii. 0023 likely to have allowed scope to what power of invention, if any, he possessed, when he was preparing his album of sacred images. In what form the types thus conventionally reproduced reached him is a question to which our present knowledge does not furnish a definite answer." But the clearly preserved GraecoBuddhist style suggests that they were indirectly derived from Gandhâra, and early transmission through Central Asia is obviously probable in the case of a Tun-huang painting.17 There are certain indications, such as the drawing in mere outlines with scarcely any colour, similar to the technique of Khotanese frescoes, and the perished state of whole portions of the silk, which seem to point to the painting being of early date. We shall see that similar observations apply also to the great embroidery picture.

The identity of the central figure with the image of akyamuni on the Vulture Peak which we have just examined makes it convenient to turn next to the fine painting Ch. 0059.13 Unfortunately it has suffered much damage. But what remains of its left half suffices to show the right shoulder and arm of the standing Sâkyamuni hanging down in its characteristic stiff gesture, just as displayed by Cli. xxii. 0023 and the embroidery picture. Above the richly decorated vesica we see the background of rocks treated in vigorous brushwork, and perched on their top the vulture which serves as a laksana for the scene. Referring to the Descriptive List for all minor details, I may note the cleverly drawn figure of a haloed disciple, which may be intended for ariputra, full of individual life, standing by the side of the Master, and along the surviving left edge of the painting a succession of small scenes painted throughout in the Chinese style of the Jataka scenes which; as we shall observe further on, frame the edges of almost all the large compositions representing Buddhist Heavens.

Painting of Aakyamuni on Vulture Peak.

lines. The agreement in minute details of the drapery between Ch. xxii. 0023 and Ch. 00260 is equally striking.

It is clearly traceable even in the much-reduced representation of the statue which appears in the side scene, Ch. 0059 ( Thousand B., PI. xIII).

" See Foucher, L'art du Gandhdra, i. pp. 497 sqq., Fig. 249.

15 Cf. Foucher, Iconographie bouddhique, i. pp. 4o sqq.

16 Considering the conventional agreement above noticed in all details of the ` Buddha on Grdhrakûta' pictures, the suggestion hesitatingly thrown out by M. Petrucci (Annales du Musée Guimet, xli. p. 122), that the painter of Ch. xxii. 0023 possibly copied his models on a personal pilgrimage to the

Indian sites, has little to recommend it.

17 In this connexion the question may be hazarded whether the votive object aimed at in the painting and its assumed prototypes was not that of securing the religious merit which might have attached to an actual pilgrimage to those distant sacred sites. The conjecture is suggested by the corresponding and very tempting explanation which M. Foucher has proposed for the widely spread Indian custom of representing, on the four sides of small Stlipa bases or of stélés, the four great events in the Buddha's Life-story, localized at Kapilavastu, Gaya, Benares, and Ku6inagara respectively ; cf. L'art du Gandhdra, i. p. 411.

"' For a large-scale reproduction, see Thousand B., Pl. Kill.