The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c11.s1.120

c11.s1.120

of view of the identification of these bas-reliefs. All the less must we forget that we are treating of images of piety, the more mindful the sculptors themselves were of this. Their evident decision to put aside all scenes of violence (bloody sacrifices, executions, murders, parricide, etc.) offered by their subjects, is justified, like their irreproachable chastity, by the desire to arouse in the mind of the faithful none but calm and collected, in one word, truly Buddhist impressions. This they have perfectly succeeded in doing, and we are rather in the wrong to reproach them for it. It is not entirely their fault if our western taste, corrupted by an excessive striving for expression and movement, is especially affected by the monotony of these series, whose edifying character remains to us a dead letter.