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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books
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| 0345 |
Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan : vol.1 |
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gods of India. Considering the close historical connection between
Kashmir and Khotan which the local traditions recorded by Hinen-
Tsiang indicate, it needs no effort of imagination to believe that
the lotuses that once adorned the gardens of settlements now buried
by the desert sand were originally derived from the great Himalayan
Valley, on the lakes of which I had so often admired them.
The appearance of a riderless horse in front of the tank and
some other features of the fresco suggest that its subject may
perhaps be identical with the curious legend which Hinen-Tsiang
relates of a Naga lady residing in a stream east of Khotan and
of her strange wooing by a pious mortal. But the point is too
uncertain to permit more than an allusion here.
Of the adjoining frescoes, however, it is impossible to mistake
the significance. A well-drawn though now much effaced male
figure of youthful appearance, seen seated in cross-legged fashion
and dressed in a dark-blue cloak that leaves the right shoulder
bare, is manifestly that of a Buddhist scholar. His right hand
holds the oblong leaves of a 'Pothi,' or manuscript book arranged
in the traditional Indian fashion, on which the eyes are fixed in
intent study. By the side of this figure and likewise turned to the
proper right, an old man is depicted in the act of teaching. His
robe, which seems to be made up of patches of varying shades of
brown, curiously suggests the orthodox garb of mendicant monks
of all Indian sects, termed 'chiravastra' in Sanskrit. While the
right hand, with the second and third fingers stretched out, is
raised in the gesture of teaching, the palm of the left supports
a closed 'Pothi.' The two boards of thin wood between which
the leaves are placed after a fashion still commonly observed in
the case of Sanskrit manuscripts, are quite distinctly marked.
The cleverly drawn features of the old man's face seem to express
complacent assurance in his teaching and full abstraction in its
subject. In front of him, too, a tank is shown with open lotuses
floating on the surface. Two birds, looking like wild geese, dis-
port themselves in the water, and with necks marked dark-blue and
green, raise their heads towards the old teacher.
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