Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c32.13

c32.13

It is also related in the Divyāvadāna that Bimbisāra, king of Magadha, desired to have a representation of Buddha painted upon a cloth. Buddha let his shadow fall upon it, commanding that the outlines should be filled in with colour, and that the chief articles of the faith should be written on it. This slender evidence Grünwedel condemns, rightly enough, as unauthentic, but he still claims it as showing that there was no desire to create an ideal type.|| It seems unlikely that a teacher such as the Buddha should have countenanced the construction of images of himself in his own lifetime; and he is represented at Barāhat and Sānchi by the feet or the wheel.