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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

to the text both of this publication and of the corresponding portion of Serindia. In
meeting this obligation I realize fully the limitations of my competence. Though familiar
with the iconography of Graeco-Buddhist art and of such remains of Buddhist art in Central
Asia as I had the good fortune to bring to light myself, I had never found leisure for
a systematic study of the religious art of the Far East or Tibet. There was enough in the
archaeology of the sites I had explored through the whole length of the Tārim Basin and
along the westernmost Marches of China and in the geography and history of those wide
regions fully to occupy my attention. In addition, my want of Sinologue qualifications
made itself sadly felt.
Fortunately I had taken special care to secure a sufficiently detailed description of
all pictorial remains during the years of my renewed absence in Central Asia and those
immediately following. This Descriptive List, now comprised in Serindia,⁷ was prepared
mainly by the hand of Miss F. M. G. Lorimer, whose painstaking scholarly work as
assistant at my British Museum collection has proved throughout a very valuable help.
Besides M. Petrucci's interpretations there was embodied in it also much useful information
received on artistic points from my friend and chief assistant Mr. F. H. Andrews, and on
Chinese inscriptions from Dr. L. Giles and Mr. A. D. Waley of the British Museum, as
well as many helpful iconographic explanations kindly furnished by two Japanese experts,
Professor Taki and Mr. Yabuki. This Descriptive List made it possible for me to provide
in Serindia a systematic review of all our pictorial relics from Tun-huang,⁸ and this in turn
has greatly facilitated the preparation of the descriptive text for the present publication.
For details which could not find mention in it reference to the chapters of Serindia already
quoted will prove useful.
It only remains for me to add my grateful acknowledgements for the care which my
friends Mr. F. H. Andrews, Mr. L. Binyon, and Mr. C. E. Freeman have been kind
enough to bestow, whether on plates or on print, and to express the wish that the reception
accorded to The Thousand Buddhas both in the West and the East may justify the hope
which prompted the sacrifice incurred for their sake at a time of great strain and stress.

AUREL STEIN.

Camp, Mohand Marg,
Kashmir.
June 2, 1921.