The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c10.16

c10.16

(⁷) *Art gréco-bouddhique du Gandhâra*, fig. 138 (fragment of the counterin Cave X, and the other in Cave XVII (¹). The identification of these bas-reliefs and of these paintings is fortunately no longer matter for reconsideration, except, perhaps, in detail (²). From the very fact that the meaning of these images has once for all been recognized, they have taken their place side by side with the texts in the capacity of independent and trustworthy witnesses to the divers forms which the legend has successively assumed. Altogether we find ourselves in possession of no less than twelve versions, of which six are provided by art and six by literature. These twelve versions are, if we may say so, so many successive « stages » of the tradition : the precise problem is to classify these various stages in their chronological order.