The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c10.2

c10.2

The close relation which exists between the written and the figured forms of the Buddhist tradition has no longer to be proved. It is known by experience. Rare indeed are those narratives of Buddha's miracles whereof no illustration has yet been discovered; still more rare are the images which do not at once find their commentary in the texts already published. And thus we have naturally come to speak of the help which, on numerous details of exegesis, the texts and monuments reciprocally lend (²). All the same, it is to be observed that until now we have principally made use of the first to explain the second. In fact the two sorts of documents seem to be unequally matched: and the muteness of the stones will never, in the estimation of philologists, be able to equal (as regards the extent and variety of the information which can be derived from them) the verbosity of the writings. However, there is one point in which the sculptures have an advantage over the manuscripts, namely the permanent fixity of their testimony. Such as they were when they left the hands of the