The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c11.s1.123

c11.s1.123

This bookish character of the sculptures of Boro-Budur is from the philological point of view the most curious conclusion to which we are led by our rapid inquiry directed to the particular point of view of their identification. If these bas-reliefs cannot be understood except by a constant comparison with the texts, it is because they were composed after the texts and to serve as illustrations thereto. Through the lithographic reproductions the manner in which the Javanese artists treated the last life of Buddha had already given us an inkling of this : the direct study of the originals and the review of the neighbouring series only confirm us in this opinion (¹). It follows that these sculptures not only give us information on many concrete details of contemporary Javanese life and civilization : they also reveal to us which version of the Buddhist writings was most readily used in Java at that time. Thus we know already from the manner in which the artist illustrated the legend of Prince Sudhana, that he followed the Sanskrit text preserved by the *Divyâvadâna*, and not the Prâkrit version of the *Mahâvastu*. The three other certainly identified *avadânas*, those of Mândhâtar, Rudrâyana, and Maitrakanyaka, likewise attest the current custom of drawing from this canonical fund of which the *Divyâvadâna* is a kind of anthology. Now the independent researches of MM. Ed. Huber and Sylvain Lévi have shown simultaneously that this last collection is, for the most part, taken from the *Vinaya-pitaka* of the Mûla-Sarvâstivâdins; and, on the other hand, the Chinese tell us that the *Lalita-vistara*, which is followed page after page by the bas-reliefs of the upper row, belongs to the same school (²). The study of the sculptures of Boro-Budur authorizes, therefore, the supposition that the canon of the Mûla-Sarvâstivâdins was that best known in Java. Perhaps this preference was due to the prestige of the Sanskrit, in which it was edited, and to what may be called its higher « exportation value », as compared with the Prâkrit of the Mâhâsânghikas, or the Pâli of the Sthaviras. However this may be, the hypothesis is clearly confirmed by the categorical information furnished by the Chinese traveller Yi-tsing; in his time, he tells us, — towards the year 700 of our era, that is to say, scarcely a century before the foundation of Boro-Budur, — « in the Islands of the Southern Sea the Mûla-Sarvâstivâdanikâya has been almost universally adopted(¹) ». This agreement in the evidences deserves to be noticed. All taken into account, it does not impair the interest of our bas-reliefs. Assuredly, in spite of the talent of their authors, they were condemned beforehand to lack that indefinable spontaneity and animation which can be communicated to the work of the artist only by labour in communion with a still living oral tradition. The sculptors of Boro-Budur, in the effort to revive an inspiration at times languishing, have had to be content with dipping into foreign and already ancient texts : but, on the other hand, they have the merit of having supplied us with several series of illustrations for authentic fragments of the sacred scriptures of Buddhism, treated with a technical skill which would deserve to be studied in detail by those whose métier it is. If our conclusions run the risk of somewhat lessening the æsthetic value of their works, the documentary interest emerges, by way of compensation, considerably increased.