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0615	Serindia : vol.1
セリンディア : vol.1

two ears two hundred thousand, on his back a rug worth a hundred thousand, the ornament on the
frontal globes worth a hundred thousand . . . those on the two tusks two hundred thousand, the
ornament on his trunk a hundred thousand'. The equally significant detail of the sacrificial jug
carried by the prince has already been referred to.

The almost complete destruction of the frieze on the wall of the north hemicycle must be all Remnants
the more regretted because it has prevented us from seeing how the artist had treated the later and of scenes on
particularly dramatic incidents of Vessantara's story. It would have been interesting to compare cycle.
his treatment of them with the description that Sung Yün has left us of the representations,
probably painted, which he saw at the sacred site near Shāhbāzgarhī, where Buddhist tradition of
Gandhāra had localized the legend, and which, he tells us, were so touching that even the barbarians
could not withhold their tears on contemplating them.⁹ As it is, we must feel gratified that
M. Foucher's happy identification enables us to recognize and interpret certain characteristic figures,
even among the scanty and badly injured remnants of the lowest part of the frieze. Thus the lion
visible in Fig. 143, the yellow-skinned animal with black spots, and another crouching beast further
on are likely to represent the lion, the tiger, and the pard whose shapes three gods assumed in order
to delay Maddī's return to the hermitage and to protect her from the wild beasts of the forest while
the wicked Brahman carried off her children as a gift from the prince. The youth seen on the right
of Fig. 141, astride a galloping animal with the head of a horse and the body of a beast like those
confronting the lion in Fig. 143, may be meant for one of the princely children disporting himself
among the strange beasts of the jungle. The two men in scale armour seen in the same fragment
of the frieze, and appearing also in another, might possibly have been intended to symbolize as it
were the great armed host which, as the Jātaka tells us, the king, Vessantara's father, took with
him when he proceeded into the forest to recall his saintly son and bestow the crown upon him.¹⁰

Section VII.—THE PAINTED DADO OF CELLA M. v

Leaving the interpretation of the short inscriptions which appeared on the well-preserved part Festoon
of the frieze to be discussed further on, we may now turn to the fascinating cycle of figures which decoration.
formed the dado at the foot of the painted cella wall. The undulating festoon connecting and
framing these figures was a feature plainly Hellenistic in origin and type. We have had occasion
to show above how frequent a motif it was in the decoration of Gandhāra relievo panels, and to
point out the general resemblance in the figurative personnel combined with it there and in our
dado. But before we proceed to review these figures in their striking variety, a few details about
the festoon itself may conveniently be recorded here.

The festoon, as clearly seen in Figs. 134–40, was formed of a wreath painted in black, about Arrange-
five and a half inches wide, and arranged in alternately rising and drooping curves. Including the ment of
width of the wreath, the maximum height of the festoon was about 1 foot 8 inches. The festoon.
descending curves, which formed the lunettes filled by a succession of portraits, were slightly wider
than the ascending curves borne on the shoulders of youthful supporting figures. This accounts for
the latter being painted on a somewhat smaller scale than the portrait busts. The distance from
the centre of one ascending curve to that of the next measured on the average 2 feet 7 inches.
If we assume this dimension for the lunettes to have been observed throughout, and from the
ascertained diameter of the cella, 26·5 feet, calculate that its circumference along the circular passage
wall was approximately 83·26 feet, we are led to infer that, excluding the width of the entrance,

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