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

employment for their skill along the Silk Route running between Khotan and
China on which Mīrān stood. The partial shaving of the heads of the garland-
carrying boys is almost certainly Indian and has spiritual significance of ancient
sanction. Although trading connexions with China by this route must have been
considerable there is nothing in the Mīrān paintings definitely indicative of
borrowings from Chinese art.

The technique of the Mīrān painting, all *in tempera*, follows well-developed
methods. Assuming that the design is first drawn on paper it is transferred to the
whitened wall-surface either by pouncing through the pricked drawing or by other
means familiar to craftsmen. The transferred outlines are then lightly traced over
with a pale colour to fix them. The masses of colour are next laid in with the
brush, shading tints are added to suggest chiaroscuro, and the contours are strength-
ened with soft brush lines of red or dark grey which blend to some extent with the
colour masses, giving softness and roundness to the edges. Finally touches of black
or red are added for emphasis where most effective, and white for high lights and
the white of the eyes. The sharp hard line of the later paintings, such as those of
Turfān, is never used in the Mīrān work. The colours are few and mainly those
readily obtainable from mineral sources, from lamp black and indigo, and pos-
sibly occasionally other vegetable origins. The shading tint on flesh is either a
warm umber or a delicate pearly grey, and is disposed in accordance with a fixed
conventional system.

Considerable changes in conception and treatment mark the painting of a later
period, represented by the examples on sites farther west, in the direction of
Khotan—Khādalik, Farhād-Bēg-yailaki, and Balawaste. The doctrine of the
'Lesser Vehicle' followed in Kāshgar, as recorded by Hsüan-tsang in the seventh
century, was less favoured in neighbouring districts. There are no garland-bearing
*putti*, and winged figures no longer appear. The *padmāsana* now invariably supports
the Buddha and in similar function is extended to most of the celestial figures.
Costumes are elaborated and, excepting that of the Buddha, are often represented
as made of richly figured stuffs with patterns sometimes suggestive of Western
derivation. The vesica appears, generally, in highly decorative form, and the
nimbus has lost its simplicity, being patterned in keeping with the vesica. The
essentially human quality, the easy grace and almost domestic note, that distin-
guishes personages of the Mīrān paintings, gives place to figures of complaisant,
inscrutable visage, posing dramatically in accordance with canonical prescript, and

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