National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

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quaint conceits and skill in portraying vigorous action as one associates with

Chinese performance and fantasy. Something of this freedom from restriction

to canonical rules, observed in other examples, may perhaps indicate Tibetan

influence. Cursive inscriptions in Uigur, written on several of the more formal

compositions, suggest Turkish craftsmanship.

The task of detaching from their walls those paintings which were still in posi-

tion was a delicate and laborious business; and the subsequent packing for the long

journey by road over some of the most difficult country in Asia, in a manner that

would ensure their delivery intact in New Delhi, was an equally exacting labour.

The different qualities of plaster encountered required appropriate methods of

procedure. Some of the plaster was hard and brittle; some sandy and gritty and

inclined to break into small fragments. Other examples were just mud mixed

with straw, hair, twigs, husks, pieces of rag, and in fact anything that would help

to `bind' it. In this class there were many different varieties with which I became

intimately acquainted in the course of mounting and reassembling the fragments.

The paintings were cut from the walls in slabs about two feet square and two

inches thick by means of a saw or other suitable tool after the painted surface had

been protected and supported by a padded board. When the plaster was excessively

brittle, it became necessary, in the case of masonry structures, either to remove the

wall and so release the plaster surface, or to leave the painting undisturbed. (Sir

Aurel Stein took this last alternative in the case of the fine Mirán V picture which

was later ruined by the clumsy efforts at removal by a Japanese `archaeologist'.)

The slabs thus cut out were packed in pairs, face to face, with wadding between;

firmly bound together, and packed tightly in strong wooden cases. The cases were

then conveyed by camel, yak, buffalo, bullock-cart, railway by whatever mode

of transport each part of the journey required to their destination and into my

hands.'

Notwithstanding the ruinous condition of most of the shrines, it is a matter of

considerable and practical interest that the colours of nearly all of the paintings are

as bright and fresh as when applied, a thousand or more years ago. Where the

colours have deteriorated or have become obscured it is generally due to the action

of smoke from camp-fires lighted by intruders who have found the caves or

structures convenient halting-places; or to infiltration of water through broken

roofs, sometimes bringing down streams of liquid mud; or to deliberate defacing

I For their subsequent treatment see my paper in Indian Art and Letters, vol. vIII, no. I, 1934.

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