The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c11.s1.5

c11.s1.5

² C. M. PLEYTE, *Die Buddha-Legende in den Skulpturen des Tempels von Boro-Budur*, Amsterdam, 1901, in-4°. — In general we are in agreement with Dr. PLEYTE as to the identification of the 120 figured scenes, which in fact follow religiously the text which they have undertaken to illustrate. All the same, his figure 14 seems to us to represent not « Çakra and the Guardians of the Cardinal Points », which would convey nothing particularly edifying, but the Bodhisattva, supposed to be seated in his mother's womb beneath the « pavilion of precious stone », at the moment when Brahmâ brings to him in a cup the drop of honey, quintessence of worlds, which he has just collected in the magic lotus figured in the preceding scene side by side with the Conception (*Lalita-vistara*, ed. LEFMANN, pp. 63-4). — As to figures 47 and 48, not identified by Dr. Pleyte, we believe, paradoxical as the assertion may seem, that they represent twice the episode of the Bodhisattva's wrestling, first with a single competitor, and then with all his rivals together (*Lalita-vistara*, pp. 152-3). This is why on fig. 47 we see a single individual, and on fig. 48 all the young Çâkyas, standing motionless and facing the Bodhisattva, who also is motionless and standing : so inveterate was the horror of the sculptors of Boro-Budur for all violent movements. — See below the additional note on p. 269.