The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c11.s1.173

c11.s1.173

There is one at which it is perhaps worth while to stop for a moment, because of the rarety of the type in India and the success which it has had in the Far East. We have already had to occupy ourselves with the sole example preserved by chance at Bodh-Gayâ. Now Dr. Pleyte — and we apologize for not having known this reference at the time — had for his part published three Javanese replicas (³), one of which is now in London, another at Leiden, and the third at Batavia (pl. XLIII, 2). He had likewise the merit of discovering in Schiefner (¹) a legend which explained the bellicose pose of this divinity, whose left foot treads upon the face of a man, and his right upon the bosom of a woman. This would be a mode of deciding, with no possible equivocation, the question of the supremacy of a simple Buddhist « guardian of the law » over the great god of the Brahmans. Çiva had the imprudence to refuse obedience to Vajrapâni under the pretence that the latter was only a yaksha : contemplate for your own edification the punishment of his crime. We in our turn may note that on this point the descriptions of the sādhanas, or magic charms, confirm the Tibetan tradition by likewise giving to the persons overthrown the names of Maheçvara and his wife Gaurî : while for the genius, instead of making of him simply a furious transformation of Vajrapâni, they use the more precise appellation of Trailokyavijaya. Let us add that this last reappears among the divinities of the Japanese pantheon under the vulgar designation of Gosanze. His pose has not changed, nor his double, living pedestal ; and, if he has no longer more than one pair of arms, his hands, at least, continue to execute the vajrahûmkâra-mudrâ characteristic of his anger and common to all his representations (²). On the Javanese statuette we find again the four visages which the Sanskrit manuscripts and the stele of Magadha ascribe to him, and even the eight attributes (sword, disc, arrow and bell,