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

some tiaras fastened by white taenias with flowing ends. The lowest head with

heavy, wig-like, jewel-studded hair has no tiara, but just a simple white band

below the top-knot. Whenever this type of hair is worn the head-dress is usually

more simple than the others. Two more examples are in this plate.

Bez. i. M, N

In this fragment, from a recess in the end wall of the shrine, four, of an assem-

blage of devatás, are evidently in attendance at a lecture by the Buddha; three with

decorously folded hands and the fourth offering flowers on a golden tazta. All the

faces wear a dreamy, tranquil, or even drowsy, expression, contrasting with the

animation of the waving stoles of the lower two figures. Parts of others are visible

behind the four. There is diversity in the pose of the legs, the colour of the hair,

and details of the coiffure; and on the rather tanned flesh there are traces of shading

colour, with an occasional slight flush on the cheeks. They all have the tilaka on the

forehead, and the ta.~.~a bearer has two short red lines on the cheek. From the con-

tours of the bust the figures are presumably feminine.

However the hair may be dressed, it is noticeable that it invariably serves to

emphasize the line of the shoulders and to relieve the head from the background.

The same treatment is consistently used in the painted silk banners from the

Caves of The Thousand Buddhas.'

The colours of the garments are varied, and there are differences in the petals of

the padmásanas, some resembling those of the Chinese marigold or peony.

Bez. i. L

This fragment comes from the north-west recess, at the end wall of the shrine,

and represents two heads of a group of devatás of the usual type, but with somewhat

more haughtiness in their bearing. The shading (chiaroscuro) of the faces is more

fully preserved than in previous examples, and shows more clearly the conventional

disposition of the warm, shading tint. It is not unlikely that some of the `shading'

represents the pink powder used by both men and women as part of their `make-

up', as the lips confess the use of the lip-stick. The black contour lines of the

features are thin and hard, a quality common to all the Bezeklik work, resembling

pen- rather than brush-lines; but they are drawn with great freedom and assur-

ance. The thin, single lines of the eyebrows meet in the centre, and from there is

I Stein, The Thousand Buddhas, Quaritch, 1921.

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