The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c11.s1.105

c11.s1.105

IV. NORTH-EASTERN CORNER. — Altogether we have offered certain, or at least extremely probable, interpretations of 27 out of the 30 panels bordering upon the preceding corner. The 30 still to be considered are much more refractory to all attempts at explanation. After Messrs. S. d'Oldenburg, Speyer and Groneman we can quote as certain only the dentification of the *Maitrakanyâvadâna* (¹). For the rest, it would be useless to launch out into hypotheses, where we still lack the elements of proof; and even more so to renew the purely descriptive commentary which Leemans has given in full : for there is no task more idle than to describe bas-reliefs without understanding them. Let us say in defence of the Dutch archæologist that access to the sources was for him almost impossible, and that he had at least the perspicacity to recognize « that the pictures of the lower series do not form a continuation of those of the upper ».