The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c11.s1.96

c11.s1.96

*Kinnara-jātaka*. — We may say, furthermore, that the two last panels of this portion of the gallery (L., 178 and 180) are likewise duplicates. The only appreciable difference is that the same prince is standing on the first to overhear — and seated on the second to listen to — the discourse of the same pair of *Kinnaras*. Such is, in fact, the name that we do not hesitate to give to the « human phenomena », who are related to the *Gandharvas* by their musical talents(¹) and who are represented here with birds’ wings and feet (pl. XLI, 1). The Buddhist art of India and the Far East seems to have taken no account whatever of the concurrent tradition which claims that the *Kinnaras* are human monsters with horses’ heads(²). When it has not been considered more suitable to give them, as above (pll. XXXIV, 2 and XXXV, 2) in the illustration of the Sudhana-kumāra legend, a purely anthropomorphic aspect, it is usually a kind of harpy that is represented under this name. This strange combination of the bust of a man or a woman, with or without arms, grafted on to the body of a bird, is found almost everywhere. It fits as well into the corners of the pediments of the temple of Mārtaṇḍ in Kashmir as into those of the metopes of the Parambanan temple in Java. It has continued to be especially frequent in the decorative and religious art of Siam. In India proper it appears in the paintings of Ajaṇṭā; and we have remarked elsewhere, in a sculpture inscribed on the « Tower of Victory » at