Innermost Asia : vol.2 / 441 ページ（カラー画像）

0441	Innermost Asia : vol.2
極奥アジア : vol.2

latter's iconographic significance. The Persian divinity of the Dandān-oilik panel is shown with
four arms. Of these the lower right one rests clenched on the thigh ; the lower left raised to the
breast holds an object which I took for a Vajra, but which may well be a cup, as suggested by
Professor von Le Coq.⁷ The spear-head upraised in the left upper hand is quite clear. But the
object at the top of a long curving shape held by the right upper hand, also upraised, is for the
most part effaced, and the interpretation of it previously offered as a flower was purely conjec-
tural. Comparison with the mural painting of the Kōh-i-Khwāja site permits us now to recognize
here a mace-head, an object far more in keeping with the figure's martial look. This interpretation
is distinctly confirmed by the curved support which uniformly in both painted panel and fresco
is shown as carrying that object.

If we are thus led to recognize a deified representation of Rustam, the national hero of the
Iranian epos, on one side of the Dandān-oilik panel, some significance may reasonably be looked
for also in the figure painted on the other side of that panel. We see there a three-headed haloed
figure, with blue flesh, seated on a decorated cushion and wearing besides an abundance of jewellery
on neck, arms, &c., a tiger skin round the waist. The emblems carried in this divinity's four hands,
two couchant bulls shown below, and a few other details, seem as if borrowed from a Brahmanic
Śiva or his Buddhistic counterpart.⁸ But what primarily calls for our attention here is that we meet
a similar juxtaposition of a three-headed divine figure with the deified Rustam also in the Sīstān
mural painting. I am unable to suggest any confident interpretation of this figure in either picture.
If it has to be sought, as seems likely, in the field of Iranian legend, I must leave the search to others
better equipped for the task and having access to the requisite materials. So much, however, may
be usefully pointed out here : the same four-armed Trimūrti figure is found on two more painted
panels from a Buddhist shrine of Dandān-oilik,⁹ and one of these, D. x. 5, shows on its reverse
the distinctly Persian figure of a horseman as the subject of a legendary scene which is represented
elsewhere also, but has not yet been explained.¹⁰ Are we, perhaps, here, too, in presence of an
import of Central-Asian Buddhist iconography derived from Iranian lore ?¹¹

It is necessary to pay due regard to the nexus with Buddhist iconography now indicated in
order to appreciate correctly the interest presented by other remains of paintings, unfortunately
badly damaged, disclosed by further examination of the walls near the passage Gha. i. When
the later wall (α) hiding the painted friezes above described had been removed, an older painted
surface about 15 inches farther in was disclosed in the western corner, through a broken portion
of this frescoed wall (β). After all that remained of those friezes had been removed and treated,
it became possible to widen this opening and to lay bare this older wall (γ). Its painted surface,
however, was found to extend only about 2 feet to the right of the corner, the face of this wall being
completely broken beyond, as seen in Fig. 467. The sketch in Pl. 54 will explain the succession
of walls. On the small surviving portion of the facing of this earliest wall γ there was painted
a robed figure, standing and nearly life-size, which in pose and dress distinctly had the typical
appearance of a Bodhisattva, as made familiar by Central-Asian Buddhist sculptures and frescoes.

The colours, where not effaced, had become faint, and consequently the photograph in Fig. 467

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