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866 PICTORIAL REMAINS FROM THE THOUSAND BUDDHAS [Chap. XXIII

shows him seated in monk's guise as Lord of the six gati, or ` Worlds of Desire ', with six clouds emanating from his person and carrying figures emblematic of the worlds of gods, men, animals, etc. In Ch. lviii. 003 (Plate LXVII),26 a silk painting inscribed and dated A. D. 963, he appears in the same character, but dressed as Patron of Travellers and attended by two kneeling Bodhisattvas.

Another type of Ksitigarbha's ` Mandalas', the iconographic interest of which M. Petrucci has fully discussed,l6 is presented by a number of paintings in which the Bodhisattva figures as Protector of Souls in Hell, surrounded by the ten Infernal Judges and other attendants. Their figures and the scenes of hell punishment over which they preside are always executed in purely Chinese style, just as the donors shown below in these paintings. Ksitigarbha himself is dressed as the Patron of Travellers. *Ch. 002I (Plate LxvII), a large painting on silk, is a typical example.27 With these paintings may be classed the curious paper roll, Ch. cii. ooi (Plate XCIII, CIII), which in spirited drawing shows scenes of judgement and punishment in a Buddhist hell, with Ksitigarbha in monk's guise appearing at its end to receive condemned souls driven by demons. Finally, two silk paintings, Ch. xxviii. oo3 ; lxi. 009, the latter remarkable for its fine and impressive colouring,28 show us ` Mandalas ' of Ksitigarbha in which the figures attending him in both his functions, as Lord of the Six Worlds and as Regent of Hell, are presented together.

The position which AvalokiteAvara, the Bodhisattva of Mercy, occupies in the Buddhist Pantheon of Tun-huang is just as predominant as that of Kuan-yin or ` Kwannon ' in the modern Buddhist worship of China and Japan.2' This is sufficiently brought out by the fact that fully ninety-nine of our paintings represent him, apart from the many Bodhisattva banners in which he is definitely recognizable or likely to be intended. For the classification of this large number of paintings the different forms in which the Bodhisattva's figure appears, either singly or accompanied by divine attendants, may serve as a convenient basis. It is true that there are also distinctions noticeable in the style of painting. But obviously in the elaborate pictures where Avalokite§vara appears attended by other divinities, i.e. in his ` Mandalas', these distinctions could not be recognized so readily as those provided by the physical type of his figure. Following our usual course of proceeding from the simple towards the more elaborate forms, we shall first pass in rapid review the paintings which present the Bodhisattva in ordinary human shape, and then turn to those where he appears with four, six, eight, or, theoretically at least, with a thousand arms and a corresponding multiplicity of heads. We may follow this order all the more conveniently because it will also lead us up from the simpler in the end to the most elaborate of the divinity's Mandalas.

In the paintings which show Avalokiteivara in human form and without attendants, we see him both standing and seated. Where he carries attributes, they are usually the lotus bud or the flask of ambrosia. These and the figure of his Dhydni-buddha, Amitabha, which very frequently appears in front of the tiara, are also familiar emblems in his Indian representations. To them there must be added the willow spray which a legend popular in Far-Eastern Buddhism, to be noticed below, has made a particularly characteristic attribute of the Bodhisattva. Among the

Ksitigarbha's Mandalas'.

Classifica- tion of Avalokite- &ara paintings.

Avalokite§vara, human, of Indian' type.

The figure of a Bodhisattva in the fragment Ch. xlix. ooi of a large silk painting, holding a long brown staff with the left hand, may, perhaps, have been intended for Ksitigarbha; but the identification of the badly preserved fragment is difficult.

26 See also Thousand B., Pl. xxv.

26 Cf. Petrucci, Appendix E, in. ix.

24 For another reproduction; see Thousand B., Pl. XXV. It may be noted that one of the Judges is clad in full armour instead of Chinese magisterial dress ; so also in Ch. 00355 ;

xxviii. 003.

Other specimens of this type of Ksitigarbha's ` Mandala' are Ch. 00225, on silk ; and, in a simplified form, the paper paintings Ch. 00404, lxiii. 002.

Y8 For a reproduction in colour, see Thousand Buddhas, Pl. XXXIX.

29 The predominance of AvalokiteSvara was equally marked already in Indian Buddhism; cf. Foucher, Iconographie bouddhique, i. p. 97.