The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c11.s1.68

c11.s1.68

3. (L., 132). Then follows a grand reception to welcome, or to say farewell to, the improvised ambassadors, in a royal court no less uncertain. The Divyâvadâna says no word regarding this function : but the meaning of the mise en scène is not to be doubted; and, for the rest, it is sufficient to compare it with the 112th bas-relief of the upper row (L., pl. CXXVII, 223, or Pleyte, fig. 112), which represents a grand dinner offered to Buddha. There, as here, the table is laid in the Javanese fashion : from twenty to thirty bowls, containing divers seasonings or viands, surround an enormous pot of rice, which constitutes the principal dish — in fact, a regular rijstaffel of ten centuries ago.