国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

At the head of the first and simplest section we must necessarily place, on account of its exceptional interest, the large but unfortunately poorly preserved silk painting Ch. xxii. 0023.' Though in tatters, it attracted attention from the first by the obvious and pure Gandhdra style of the numerous Buddha and Bodhisattva images which it shows arranged' in different compartments. But it was reserved for M. Petrucci first to recognize clearly from the few inscriptions still legible on the cartouches adjoining the different figures that they were intended to reproduce sculptured images worshipped at various sacred sites of India. The iconographic importance which this discovery assures to the painting is too clear to need full exposition here. M. Petrucci was fortunately able to emphasize it himself in his Musée Guimet lecture on our paintings,2 and the very careful account given by Miss Lorimer in the Descriptive List makes it unnecessary for me to go into details. But attention may well be called here to some essential points. The total number of images of which representations are extant or at least partially traceable is eighteen, the original position of thirteen among them being certain. In the case of six the characteristic poses or attributes enable us at present to identify with certainty the particular divinity which the original images were intended to represent. For others further scrutiny by competent iconographers is likely to furnish definite clues.

That in figure iv we have the reproduction of an image showing Gautama Bodhisattva, seated in the famous scene of Mara's attack immediately preceding the Illumination, is made quite certain by the characteristic pose of the hand touching the rocky seat (bhûmisftars`a-mudrei) 3 and by the triple monster head forming a crown over the Bodhisattva's head and symbolizing the demon army of Mara. It was in that pose that the miraculous image at the sacred site of Bôdh-Gaya, known as ` the Vajrasana of Mahabodhi' described at length by Hsüan-tsang, and still traceable in numberless replicas, presented Sakyamuni at the moment of Enlightenment.4 And that actually a representation of this far-famed image was here intended in our painting becomes certain from the Chinese inscription placed against it which describes the figure as a statue in the Kingdom of Magadha. Considering that Chinese historical evidence proves the Vajrasana or the image of the ` true appearance of the Diamond Throne', as the Chinese pilgrims render its name, to have been the most venerated Buddhist idol of India from the seventh to the eleventh century, we have, indeed, every reason to expect its reproduction in our painting. We meet there again with a Bodhisattva image seated cross-legged in the 642cmisfiarta-mudra,° and this time, too, a fortunate chance has

Buddha and Bodhisattva sculptures reproduced.

Image of
Buddha of
Vajrasana.

1 See PI. LXX, which reproduces what appears to be a portion of the less damaged left half of the whole picture. For the surviving fragments of the right half as originally recovered, an enlarged inventory photograph is available. In finally mounting the left half, a fragment from the right one was transferred by the Department of Prints and Drawings into the blank space to R. of Fig. y, apparently for aesthetic reasons, as shown by the reproduction in Thousand B., Pl. xIv ; see note in Descriptive List, Ch. xxii. 0023.

2 See Petrucci, Annales du Musée Guimet, xli. pp. r 2 x sqq.

3 Cf. regarding this gesture, which evolved in Gandhdra becomes the stereotyped symbol in later Indian sculpture for the Attainment of Buddhahood, Foucher, L' art du Gandhdra, i. pp. 406 sqq.

Cf. Foucher, ibid., i. pp. 413 sq.; iconographre bouddhique, i. pp. 90 sqq., Fig. r r, Pl. III. 5.

It is of interest to note that, among the miniature representations of sacred structures and images in two Nepalese manuscripts which M. Foucher has described and elucidated

in the latter work, there is another one (not reproduced), marked II. 2 and bearing the inscription Mahâbodhi= vajrasanah, which just like our figure in Ch. xxii. 0023 combines the bhûmisparsa-coudra of akyamuni with a representation of Mara's demons.

° Cf. M. Foucher's note on Le Bouddha inachevé de Bûrûbudur in B.É.F.L'.0., iii. p. 79 ; also Chavannes, Les inscriptions chinoises de Bodh-Gaydf, in Revue de l'histoire des religions, xxxiv. pp. 31 sq.

6 See Petrucci, Annales du Musée Guimet, xli. p. 122. I presume that by Kapita is rendered the Chinese local name Chi pin, which, judging from the joint evidence of FIstiantsang and Wu-kung, can safely be placed in the region of Kabul ; cf. for detailed references Chavannes, Turcs occidentaux, p. 52, note r. This location seems to me certain in view of the fact that both pilgrims speak of Chia-pi-shih (Kapiia) : Chi-pin as the summer residence of the Kings who ruled, and in the cold season had their headquarters in, Gandhdra. Kabul has always served as the summer residence