The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c11.s1.128

c11.s1.128

Boro-Budur. — We shall not undertake a detailed review of the bas-reliefs deployed along the upper galleries of the stûpa. We restrict ourselves to noticing that, as we mount, they assume a character more and more iconographic, less and less « narrative », and that the edifying story finally gives way to the image of piety (¹). Buddha, monks, nuns, Bodhisattvas of both sexes file past in twenties, at times seated under trees more or less stereotyped, most often installed under the open porches of temples, just as they are seen on the miniatures, or the clay seals, of India (²). The sculptors weary so much the less of all these repetitions as each one of them represents so much progress in covering the considerable surface which it was their task to decorate. There would be no advantage in noting here and there in passing a few specially characteristic figures, such as, in the second gallery, some Avalokiteçvaras with four or six arms, and a Mañjuçrî carrying the Indian book (*pustaka*) on the blue lotus (*utpala*); or again, in the third gallery, a group composed of a Buddha between these same two Bodhisattvas, etc. The problem is much more vast, and demands a solution of very different amplitude. It would be necessary to make a census of all these images and each of their varieties, to draw up an exact and complete table of them, and to study attentively their graphic distribution; then only, after having allowed for the necessities of decoration and having among this crowd of idols discerned the really essential types, we might attempt the identification of what for the artists of Java constituted the Buddhist pantheon. We must hope that some Dutch archæologist will find time to undertake this delicate and extensive task; it is unnecessary to say that it is forbidden to a simple visitor.