The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c12: The Buddhist Madonna

The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c12

Language: English

The Buddhist Madonna

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¹ Extract from *Monuments et mémoires publiés par l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (Fondation Eugène Piot)*, vol. XVII, fasc. II, 1910.

The painting reproduced in colours on the frontispiece to this volume comes from the ruins of Yâr-Khoto, at about ten kilometres to the west of Turfan. Discovered on the 13th of July 1905 in the course of the operations of the second German archæological mission in this region of Chinese Turkestan, it is at present deposited in the Royal Ethnographical Museum (Kgl. Museum für Völkerkunde) in Berlin, under no. T(urfan) II, Y, 69. In shape rectangular, it measures m. 0,35 by m. 0,50, and, according to all probability, was formerly framed in bands of woven material, like a Japanese kakemono. The sanctuary, which it had once adorned, was apparently one dedicated to Buddha : at least, the fairly numerous manuscripts found in its company retain, under the diversity of their Sogdian, Turkish or Chinese languages and scripts, the common characteristic of having a Buddhist purport : we should have to except only some Uïgur fragments, which would be Manichean. On the other hand, the final disintegration of the building, constructed of undressed bricks, could not be much later than the ninth century of our era. Only the extraordinary dryness of the climate explains how a thing so perishable should have succeeded in reaching us, beneath the thick accumulated débris of bricks and dust, in a state of preservation relatively so satisfactory. We are indebted to the kindness of Dr. A. von Le Coq and Dr. Bode, the Director-General of the Royal Museums in Berlin, for the opportunity of offering to the public a first acquaintance with this work, one of the most significant, in our opinion, which have issued from the recent excavations in Central Asia.

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The reproduction which we publish is sufficiently adequate to enable us to dispense with anything beyond a succinct description, insisting less upon what is still to be seen at the first glance than upon what only a close examination reveals. The principal subject is a seated woman, holding in the hollow of her right arm a child in swaddling clothes, to whom with her left hand she presents her bosom. Her head, surrounded by a triple circular nimbus, is covered as far as the shoulders by a veil, embroidered round the hems and tied back with a ribbon. She is clothed down to the feet in a tunic with long sleeves, open at the breast and quite analogous to those which we have seen worn by the women of Kashmir. This robe is strewn with lozenges — themselves subdivided into four like figures, each marked by a red spot — which were probably woven in the stuff; the collar, cuffs, opening and hem being bordered with the same embroidery as the veil. The feet are shod in slippers without heels, depicted in black, and the neck is adorned with a necklace of the same hue. The child is tightly swathed up to the neck, like a mummy. The chair on which the woman sits, in a very awkward position, is without arms or back, but very massive and much ornamented. From the front we perceive only two rectangular uprights, fitted between two frames of the same shape, the one which rests on the ground being a little wider than that which serves as a seat. The mouldings are repeated symmetrically. Those of the two inner crossbars reproduce the regularly outlined curves of the embroidery : the decoration of the outer framework and of the uprights introduces halves or quarters of the lotus flower into the intervals of the curved undulations or the angular zigzags of a stripe.

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This central figure is surrounded by eight little attendants, four on each side. These are so many vigorous and plump little boys. All wear on their shaven crowns tufts of hair : round their necks are necklaces ornamented with medallions, doubtless serving as amulet-bearers ; on their feet black shoes ; about their loins cotton drawers, forming in front a little pocket which is pierced with a small slit, but projecting in wide pleats behind. The penetrating eye of Dr. A. von Le Coq has already noticed that four of them are about to play a kind of hockey. The first, at the bottom to the left, is raising his two hands, of which the right brandishes a crooked stick, towards one of his companions, who is perched upon the stool, as if to incite him to throw the ball which he clasps tightly in his right hand. The latter also holds upright in his left hand a similar bat, and half turns towards the seated woman, as if she were watching their play, while feeding her latest-born. At the top, on the right, two other little boys are engaged in the same sport. The upper one, who is squatting, with his left hand throws the ball, which is indicated in red; the one standing below receives it with his bat; for, before the canvas was stretched and the drawing distorted, his left arm, which has now disappeared, was, doubtless, long enough to reach and manipulate the red, bent stick which is to be seen between the two partners. Below, a fifth child, seated on the ground, practises playing a sort of guitar with four strings. Still lower, a sixth is carrying as well as he can, in a basket too big for his arms, some melons, whole or in slices — those famous melons of Upper Asia, whose excellence all travellers unite in celebrating and of which the scent alone was sufficient to awaken in the heart of the Great Mogul Baber, even mid the enchantment of his Indian gardens, a homesickness for his native Ferghâna. To return to the left portion of the plate, above the two hockey-players we see another little boy, who seems to be amusing himself by trying to balance on his head a two-handled vase. As for the eighth little figure in the top corner, it is so much injured that we dare not venture any conjectures concerning its manner of amusement : the author of the tracing which accompanies and supplies what is missing in the plate, has completed the figure, with infinite probability, as a little genius perfectly analogous to the one in the symmetrically opposite corner.

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To this summary description we are justified in adding a few observations of a technical kind. The painting is executed on a piece of coarse canvas, which had previously been covered with a coating, now partly vanished. The features (perhaps first sketched by the help of a pounce, dusted over a perforated pattern, as we know was often the custom of these image-makers) were drawn in ink, with great sureness of hand. If the sitting posture of the woman is unskilfully rendered, we shall remark, on the other hand, an interesting attempt to make the lozenges on the dress blend with the movement of the figure. Then colours, doubtless water-colours, have been applied in broad uniform tints. Here, it seems, golden yellow was confined to the seat and embroideries, while for the textures there is recourse to a series of reds, passing from the minium of the dress to the carmine of the veil : all are to be seen again on the various bands of the halo. Then a light wash in ink, encircling each feature, emphasizes the contours and hollows out the folds, whilst a few delicate touches here and there give the finishing stroke to the summary indication of the modelling. These are exactly the procedures which are found to recur in Sino-Japanese paintings, as also on Persian miniatures. We know that Oriental art has continued of set purpose to ignore the chiaroscuro. As to the date to be assigned to this picture, it is, provisionally, rather uncertain : for the archæology of Central Asia has to be drawn from the chaos of its materials, which for the most part are still unedited. However, thanks to the previous excavations of Sir Aurel Stein, we know that the *rabâb* with four keys, with which the child musician is playing, the flowers which the mouldings of the seat encircle, the « wave » or « cloud » motif of the embroidery were in use at Niya and at Rawak in southern Turkestan from the third century of our era (¹). But, on the other hand, according to the opinion of Dr. A. von Le Coq, the woman's costume, of a fashion already Uigur — not to mention the extreme obliquity of the eyes — would force us to descend at least as far as the beginning of the seventh.

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(¹) See M. A. STEIN, *Ancient Khotan*, pl. LXXIII (guitar handle), LXVIII (seat), LXXXVIII (waves), LXVII (halo), etc. ; and cf. our *Art gréco-bouddhique du Gandhâra*, figg. 162, 213, 243, 246 (encircled flowers), 273 (waves), etc.

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So far we have restricted ourselves to a simple statement of the facts furnished by an examination of the document. Now it is time to broach the more delicate question of its interpretation. Inevitably, as soon as we are confronted by this pious design, we are carried back in memory to some familiar picture of the Virgin nursing the Child Jesus. For this unavoidable rapprochement we see at least two reasons. Firstly, there are not so many ways for a woman to offer her bosom to her nursling. The second, more topical, reason might chance through long habituation not immediately to occur to us. We remember having heard the ingenuous expression of it from the lips of a young Panjabi Brahman, who, in front of an Italian chromo-lithograph of the Holy Family, could not conceal his astonishment that « the mother of the God of the Europeans should not be dressed after the manner of the Mêm-Sahebs ». He expected, as he explained to us, to see on the head of Mary a hat similar to those worn by English ladies, whereas, in fact, her veil gave her quite an Indian appearance. This he could not get over... After having smiled at his amazement, we shall do well not to forget the exact bearings of his remark. It is incontestable that the artistic tradition of the veil does in fact give an Asiatic appearance to the most Gothic of our Virgins. But, if our European images go more than half way to meet this « Notre Dame de Tourfan » — as it had from the first ¹ been christened — it is intelligible that conversely our first instinct will be to connect this latter with a Christian prototype. Have not the excavations in fact proved the former existence, in this oasis of Turfan, of Manichean and even Nestorian sects? The unedifying entourage of eight urchins would indeed be ill-explained by this hypothesis; but, with a little good will, all may be arranged, and in strictness one could reduce these little elves to a purely decorative role, analogous to that played by their counterparts, the *putti*, on the paintings of the Catacombs. In short, definitely to settle the question of the identity of our figure, we may imagine that it will be sufficient to confront it with the first chance representation, provided that it be somewhat anterior, of the Virgin nursing her child.

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¹ This hypothesis was, indeed, put aside by Dr. von Le Coq because of the Buddhist character of the manuscripts found at the same time as the painting (cf. Journ. of the Roy. As. Soc., 1909, p. 309).

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It will perhaps surprise more than one reader to learn that we have experienced great difficulty in laying our hand upon such a representation. It is not, indeed, that we ever thought to find thereby the clue to an enigma which seems to us, as will be seen, susceptible of a much nearer solution. But as little as anyone did we think of denying the Christian analogies of the painting of Turfan, and in any and every case it would have been interesting to connect with it a western counterpart. We went therefore, and knocked at the door of the specialists. We must confess that their reply was not what we expected. They told us, to begin with, that the *Virgo lactans* was not shown in the catacombs of Rome (¹). Even in Byzantine art, with its well-known horror of the nude, the icons of the Γαλακτοτροφοῦσα, charged, perhaps, at first with some indecorum, do not seem to appear until very late, in the XVth century, and would be imitations of an Italian model, itself of recent date (¹). Finally, in France the first examples would not go back further than the XIVth century, and would translate in our religious art new feelings of familiarity and tenderness (²). But even the best established laws must always have some exception, and in the present case M. Gabriel Millet has pointed out to us at least two. The first is furnished by the ivory cover of a Gospel of Metz, attributed to the IXth century of our era (pl. XLVI, 1) : the « Mother of God », thus designated by name in Byzantine sigla, is seated on a raised throne in the form of a coffer, and offers her left bosom, over which she has modestly drawn a fold of her veil, to a child entirely swathed in bands. The other specimen, recently obtained from the excavations of the Service of Egyptian Antiquities at Saqqara, is by the gracious permission of M. G. Maspéro reproduced here (pl. XLVI, 2). Seated on a chair with a back, of rather rude construction, the Virgin Mary no less chastely offers the nipple of her right bosom to a little Jesus, already growing, who, installed on his mother’s knee, holds her forearm with both hands. According to the published information this painting had once adorned the walls of a convent founded in 470 and probably destroyed soon after the Arab conquest of Egypt (640-641). Whilst the Carolingian ivory would be later than the image of Turfan, the Coptic fresco would, therefore, be earlier. But, since — notwithstanding the analogy of the wholes and even of certain details — we discern at once that none of

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¹ Cf. J. WILPERT, *Die Malereien der Katakomben Roms*, 1903 (not even on his pl. 22).

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(¹) KONDAKOV, *Monuments of Christian Art at Athos*, 1902, fig. 68 and p. 173 (in Russian); BENIGNI, *La Madonna allatante e un motivo bizantino?* ap. *Il Bessarione*, VII, 1900, pp. 499-501. We are indebted for this information to the kindness of our colleague M. GAB. MILLET. (²) E. MALE, *L’Art religieux de la fin du Moyen-âge en France* (1908), p. 148.

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these three figures proceeds directly from either of the other two, their simultaneous existence serves in the end only to induce us to bring a prudent reserve to bear upon our statements. If our short enquiry does not at all result, as we had begun to think, in guaranteeing the entire absence of the type of Nursing Virgin from ancient Christian art, it at least proves the extreme rarety thereof. Consequently, it suffices — and it makes no further claim — to divert us from the first trail along which our European prejudices would have started us.

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Whoever, in fact, has by his studies acquired a certain familiarity with Central Asian matters, whether he be Indianist or Sinologue, cannot have remained ignorant of the preponderant role played by Indian civilization in « Serindia », at least down to the coming of the Musalmans; and it is a fact no less surely established that the principal vehicle of this influence was the religion of Buddha. It is in this direction that it would be proper, *a priori*, to point our researches : towards the same quarter we are in the case of this particular picture directed by the character of the edifice beneath whose ruins it was discovered. Now, if we look at it no longer with eyes hereditarily Christian, but through Buddhist spectacles, we shall no less infallibly recognize in it, instead of the Virgin Mary nursing the Child Jesus, the fairy Hâritî suckling her last born, Pingala, whilst some of her numerous sons are playing around her. This is a consecrated iconographic theme, of which it will be easy for us to quote numerous examples, spread over nearly twenty centuries and over the whole of the Far East. In face of the scarcity of western counterparts, this abundance of documents would at once weigh down the balance in favour of the Buddhist identification : comparison of the various replicas will bring full confirmation.

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But, first of all, it is relevant to present briefly to the non-Orientalist reader the goddess whose acquaintance we invite him to make. In truth, she was originally only a fairy, and even a wicked fairy. By birth she, as well as her troup of imps, belonged to the race, often maleficent, of spirits of the air (*yaksha*), in whom popular Indian belief had, and still has, a habit of incarnating contagious maladies. She herself personified the most pitiless of infantile epidemics. It is well known that in the India of the present day, in spite of the progress of vaccination, small-pox is dreaded to such an extent that it is still the custom not to reckon children among the members of the family until they have victoriously passed through the trial of this terrible disease. This is why the « green » Hâritî still receives from the Buddhists of Nepal the worship which the Hindus of the plains address to the « cold » Çitalâ. That she should have ended by transforming herself from a formidable scourge into a beneficent divinity will not surprise any student of religions. Of course, there was a legend to explain this transmutation of worthless lead into pure gold. Buddha in person had once converted the *yakshinî* who decimated, or (as is metaphorically written) pitilessly « devoured », the children of the town of Râjagriha (now Râjgir, in Behar). In order to convert her to more human feelings, he decided to deprive her for a time of Pingala, the last and most loved of her five hundred sons. Some even relate that the Master hid Pingala under his inverted alms-vase : and on Chinese paintings we do, in fact, see hordes of demons vainly endeavouring by the help of cranes and levers to turn over the huge bowl, in which the little genius is imprisoned (¹). However this may be, the stratagem succeeded. The grief caused to Hâritî by this momentary separation made her return to herself, or, better, put herself in the place of simple mortals, whom she had at times robbed of their sole offspring : she swore never to do so again. However, every one must live, even the wicked who repent. As soon as she is converted, the ogress mother respectfully calls the attention of the Master to the fact that the first precept of his morality, by interdicting all homicide, really condemns her and her five hundred sons to die of hunger; and Buddha, much struck by the justice of this remark, promises that henceforth in all convents his monks shall offer a daily pittance, of course on condition that she and hers faithfully observe their vows...

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¹ Cf. *Archæologia*, LHI, 1892, pp. 239-244 ; *La légende de Kouei tseu mou chen* (Annales du Musée Guimet, Bibl. d'Art, vol. I); Ed. CHAVANNES, *T'oung Pao*, Oct. 1904, p. 490.

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This monastic legend, very skilfully composed, endeavours, as we see, not merely to conciliate the contradictory notions attached to this deity, at once both cruel and propitious : in order completely to reassure the faithful, it also stands as a guarantee against any relapse of the converted *yakshiṇi* into her ancient errors. Last and in regard to decorum most important, it claims to vindicate, under colour of a contract long ago made with the Master, the installation of this former ogress in the convent, and the propriety of the worship offered to her. It is, in fact, only too clear that it is from pure concession to popular superstitions that, according to the testimony of the Chinese pilgrim Yi-tsing, the image of Hâritî was to be « found either in the porch or in a corner of the dining-hall of all Indian monasteries ». There she was, moreover, he tells us in plain terms, adored no longer as a devourer, but as a « giver » of children. Usually the « genius with the golden bag » was opposite to her — at least, when he was not, as in a number of surviving representations, seated beside her : for the common people had been quick to associate the dispenser of riches with the goddess of fecundity (¹). We may even be permitted to think that their altars must have been those not least frequented by devout laymen, the more so as both sexes were there plainly provided for. A passage from Hiuan-tsang interests us still more directly by attesting that the worship of Hâritî had been transported early into the north-west of India. While following the same itinerary, we were surprised to encounter, under a name which is nothing but an Afghan translation of hers, the mound, still miraculous, even in the eyes of present-day Musalmans, which marks the location of her principal sanctuary in this country of Gandhâra, where at about the beginning of our era the Græco-Buddhist art flourished (²).

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This is sufficient to explain to us the antiquity, number and character, at once classical and benignant, of her Indian images. All answer more or less to the general description given by Yi-tsing : she is depicted « as holding a babe in her arms and round her knees three or five children ». The little genii who are usually playing and worrying each other evidently represent her « five hundred sons ». There is nothing astonishing in seeing them all of nearly the same size : the texts admit that their mother, a true Gigogne, may very well have been able to bring them

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(¹) See above Essay V, The Tutelary Pair. (²) Cf. Yi-Tsing, *Records*, trans. TAKAKUSU, p. 37 ; Hiuan-Tsang, *Mémoires*, trans. JULIEN, I, p. 120; *Bull. de l'Éc. fr. d'Extrême-Orient*, I, 1901, pp. 341 sqq.

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all into the world in the same year (¹). In the midst of all this swarm, which often climbs over her person, one would sometimes say that she is posing in advance as an Italian allegory of Charity. At one time she is seated : her « Benjamin » rests in her lap and childishly plays with her necklace (pl. XLVII, 1), or at times simultaneously suckles her breast. Then again she is standing; but her favourite still clings to her bosom. Usually he is placed astride her hip, in the manner in which Indian women carry their children; and two at least of his brothers have succeeded in climbing as far as the maternal shoulders (pl. XLVII, 2). With these two types — at times partly combined, as in pl. XLVIII, 1, which in addition shows the husband of the goddess — may be connected the relatively numerous images furnished no less by the ruins of the districts of Peshawar and Mathurâ than by the famous grottoes of Ajaṇṭâ. The ogress, once the terror of fruitful mothers, has clearly there become a kind of matron, hope of barren women. It is this auspicious group that, as we are about to see, has conquered the whole of the Far East.

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¹ Mahâvastu, ed. SENART, I, p. 253, l. 2.

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For this pacific conquest two ways had been opened by those pioneers of Indian civilization, leaders of caravans or master mariners, the one by land and the other by sea. It was this latter route which must perforce have been followed in order to reach Java, on the actual confines of the Indian Archipelago. In preference to the little bronzes of the museum in Batavia — evidence too portable to be unexceptionable, — we reproduce here the Hâritî actually sculptured on the left wall of the entrance corridor of the temple called Chandi Mendut, near to the famous *stûpa* of Boro-Budur (IXth century), and doubtless almost contemporaneous with it. Represented on the right wall opposite, an image of the genius of riches completes the proof of the transplantation of their double worship into the most beautiful of the « Islands of the Southern Seas » (¹). Crouching upon a cushion, her legs covered with a *sarong* and her body clothed only with jewels, the goddess, who wears a sumptuous coiffure, is surrounded by no less than thirteen « little demons ». One is being presented to her on the right by an attendant, whilst the others play in the sand, caper about, or climb trees in order to steal their fruits; and during this time Pingala, resting in her arms, prepares to suckle with all the conviction of a nursling charged by the sculptor to emphasize the identification of his mother (pl. XLVIII, 2).

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If, this first mark noted, we return to our starting-point, we may follow the same family group on the march over the sandy roads of Central Asia. It was hardly doubtful that, in order to reach China, they must have pursued the same routes which the Chinese pilgrims had taken in order to reach India. Of this probability recent discoveries have made a certainty. The original of the frontispiece marks at Turfan precisely the route followed on the outward journey by Fa-hian and Hiuan-tsang, the northern route which, footing the chain of the Celestial Mountains, rounds the great desert basin of the Tarim. As to the southern route, which deployed along the northern slope of the Kuen-lun mountains the chaplet of the oases visited by Sung Yun on the outward journey and by Hiuan-tsang on his return,

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(¹) See above, p. 264.

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it was unwilling to be behind its rival in any way, and it also has already furnished us, if not with a canvas, at least with a mural painting of Hâritî.

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No one is unacquainted with the brilliant excavations carried out by Sir Aurel Stein, on the occasion of two successive missions, over the ancient alignment of this track across the present-day desert of Takla-Makan. One of them brought to light, in March 1908, at the north of the oasis of Domoko (itself situated at a longitude of a little more than one degree east of Khotan) a large figure of a woman, painted in tempera on a coating of mortar, in the embrasure of the door of a little Buddhist sanctuary. The cell measured on the interior m. 2,50 by m. 2,45, and its mud walls, decorated with Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, attained a thickness of m. 1,35. The panel, m. 1,15 wide, which particularly interests us here, had been preserved almost intact under a heap of sand accumulated by the wind to a height of m. 1,20. Only the lower part had in former times, when the entrance served as a passage for worshippers, suffered much from the abrasion of passers-by. However, according to the notes kindly communicated to us by the explorer, there could still be distinguished near the left foot of the woman, who, apparently, is seated, two little figures, clothed and gambolling about, whilst near her right foot a little naked boy seemed to be getting out of the way of a blow struck by a person completely effaced. As to the upper portion, it has reached the British Museum in an excellent condition; and Sir Aurel Stein has very kindly allowed us to give a first and double reproduction of it (pl. XLV). It shows clearly the characteristic features of the principal figure, the dreamy squint of the eyes, the symmetry of the two lovelocks, the perforated and frightfully distended lobes of the ears, the oval of the « moon face », too broad according to our taste, the folds (classic in India) of the neck, the net of pearls in the hair, finally and above all, the triple circular orb of the nimbus. The goddess, since such she is, is dressed to the waist in a short cassock, of a rich greenish hue, spotted with yellow and trimmed with fawn braid, the short sleeves terminating above the elbow in a frill of linen folded in fluted plaits. Underneath are long, reddish sleeves, evidently belonging to the bodice of the dress. A turquoise-coloured scarf, exactly similar to that worn by the Gandharian images (pl. XLVII, 1), hangs in folds in the hollows of her arms. Her left hand, with straightened index, rests on the front of her knee, which is bent in the Indian manner. Meanwhile a naked child clings to her left bosom, as if asking to be suckled, whilst another little boy is seated astride on her right forearm, and two more, one of whom is dressed, ride familiarly on her shoulders. This more than suffices to determine, from analogy with pll. XLVII-XLVIII, 1, the identification with Hâritî and her mischievous progeny. The opposite wall of the embrasure is, unfortunately, destroyed : we should have expected to see there the genius of riches, the usual counterpart of the goddess of children. Let us add that, according to the chronological indications elicited by Sir Aurel Stein, the decoration of the temple to which this image belonged could not be later than the VIIIth century A. D., and may be a little earlier.

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If, continuing our journey eastward, we at last arrive in China, we are so much the more certain to discover Hâritî there, as, according to the evidence of Yi-tsing, « the portrait of the goddess-mother of demon sons (Kwei-tseu-mu-chen) » was already in his time (end of the VIIth century) to be met with in the country. In fact, under this same surname, pronounced Ki-si-mo-jin, she has pushed her way much further still, as far as Japan. A simple inspection of her modern images, whether representing her under her usual mask or, by a curious survival, in her proper guise as an ogress (pl. XLIX), will prove that the type has not, any more than the name, been so travestied by the local interpretation that one can hesitate as to its identity; even in the absence of any traditional designation, it could be divined simply from the child nestling in his mother's lap or walking by her side. In China itself matters are not quite so simple, and a new element seems to have intervened to complicate the problem. Has the personality of Hâritî been engrafted upon that same native goddess who, according to a certain interpretation, had been identified with the Indian Bodhisattva, Avalokiteçvara? Has she simply been absorbed into the vogue of the feminine forms of the latter and considered as one of the numerous avatars of his inexhaustible grace? It is not for us to decide, any more than to unravel the origins of the curious legend which tends to make of « Kuan-yin with a child » a virgin who is a mother only by adoption. But what we believe we can affirm, by reason both of the fundamental identity of the worship offered and of the exterior analogy of the iconographic types, is that the innumerable statuettes, either seated or standing, in which « the Great Mistress with the white robe... just because she is the patron of childless people, is represented with a child in her arms, which makes her strongly resemble the Virgin Mary (¹) », are only succedanea of the Indian and Serindian images of Hâritî (pl. L). Finally, and consequentially, we must likewise recognize the latter under the exactly similar features of the Annamese Quan-Am, who, « seated on a rock and draped in a robe with wide plaits, bears in her arms a child, which has caused her to be surnamed by our soldiers the Holy Virgin (¹) ».

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¹ De Groot, *Les fêtes annuellement célébrées à Emoui* (Ann. du Musée Guimet, vol. XI), p. 182.

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¹ G. DUMOUTIER, *Les cultes annamites* (Extract from the *Revue Indo-Chinoise*, 1906), p. 30 of the separate print.

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This time the circle of our pilgrimage of research is closed, but only after having embraced the whole of the Far East. We see that the observation of the Christian analogy of these images recurs like a refrain in the mouths of those Europeans whose eyes have once lighted upon them. In case the unanimity of the testimonies should run some risk of impressing the reader, he will quickly reassure himself by reflecting that, if some Egyptian mummy were wakened from its secular sleep, it would not hesitate in the least to recognize in them replicas of Isis suckling Horus, whilst every modern Hindu would with the same certainty see in them Kṛṣṇa in the arms of his mother Dêvakî or of his nurse Yaçodâ. The type of the woman with a child, the happy incarnation of the wishes of mothers and the natural object of their worship, belongs, in fact, to all times, if not to all countries. Still there are distinctions to be made. Not everywhere do the same images personify the same ideas, far from it : did they so, different civilizations would nevertheless know them under different names. The whole intention of this short study is to assign to the heroine of the frontispiece and pl. XLV her authentic position by restoring to her, if possible, her moral physionomy and replacing her in her milieu. Deified, as witness her halo; a feminine divinity, as witness her forms; goddess-mother, as witness her progeny ; affiliated to the Buddhist pantheon, as witness the place in which she was found ; Indian by origin, as witness her Gandharian prototypes; we have been able, without any shadow of violence, to include her in the group of idols, and the cycle of legends, dedicated to the ancient ogress of smallpox. Of course, she is shown to us only as transformed into a protectress of children and a dispenser of fecundity to women : from the very moment when we catch sight of her in India, this transformation is already an accomplished fact. In the last analysis, the best verification of her identity rests, here as there, in her entourage of urchins : were it not for this suspicious trace of her past, which even in her subsequent dignity continues to cling to her, we should not have been able with absolute certainty to call her by her Sanskrit name of Hâritî, the so-styled « mother of the little demons ».

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All taken into consideration, we believe that we thus arrive at a precise and sure identification : and the interest of this iconographic type is thereby increased. It announces, or recalls, in fact, congeners beginning with India, its fatherland, as far as Japan, the limit of its migrations, to say nothing of Java. Henceforward it would be difficult to choose a better illustration of the recently acquired knowledge concerning the progressive diffusion of Buddhist art throughout the Far East. It was not until 1900 that our public had a revelation of the existence in Japan, since the VIIth century, of a religious art of the human figure — of what was formerly styled the « grand art ». That its origin was to be sought in China, through the intermediacy of Corea, was quickly seen, and can easily to-day be verified by the photographs recently published by M. Ed. Chavannes (¹).

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¹ ED. CHAVANNES, *Mission archéologique dans la Chine septentrionale*, Paris, 1909, pll. CV-CCLXXXVH.

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The productions of the ancient Buddhist art of China are in their turn connected in the most evident manner with those lately exhumed by the Russian, English, German, French, and even Japanese excavations in Turkestan. But these latter had been independently and from the first connected, by a transition no less evident, with the works of the Indo-Greek school of Gandhâra. Thus, thanks to the combined efforts of the latest scientific missions in Asia, we have seen joined again the scattered links, or, better, the broken glimpses, which we already possessed of the long chain of transmission. The most important result of the last explorations will have been definitely to arrange before our eyes in an uninterrupted series the numerous images which, escorting that of Buddha, followed it in procession as far as the islands of the Rising Sun or of the Southern Seas. In this varied train of gracious or furious figures, if there is none more charming, neither is there any more « representative », than that of Hâritî, were it only because we meet her at each step on the road; and this is why, among all those which have already been brought to the museums of Europe, this one, from the first, forced itself upon our notice.

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But let us not be misunderstood. We do not in the least claim to base on the frail support of this single image the theory which hundreds of documents continue more and more to reinforce, the theory of the conquest of eastern Asia by Indo-Greek art : we merely say that it remains a signally typical example of a historical phenomenon whereof it formed only a part. Were we pressed a little further, we might even be willing to see in it an excellent illustration of a fact still more general. The recent unification of the art of higher and lower Asia has, in fact, a correlative in the fundamental and long recognized unity of European art :

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and now it appears more and more clearly that the two have a common source. If for a moment we disregard the intrusion of the Musalman Arabs, the history of religious art in the ancient world, from the beginning of our era, may — when reduced to its essential features and excluding numerous local variations — be summed up somewhat in this manner : on the decadent trunk of Hellenistic art were grafted in nearer Asia two vigorous young shoots, of which one has been called Græco-Buddhist, and the other might just as well be called Græco-Christian. It is not for us to ignore the fact that the latter has through Italy and Byzantium conquered the whole of Europe; but we must realize also that the former, growing and multiplying like the Indian fig-tree, has likewise gradually won over the whole of Eastern Asia. And thus, from the islands of the Atlantic to those of the Pacific, humanity has by degrees come to pray only at the feet of more or less distant, more or less unsuspected offshoots of Greek art. But on the most distant branches of this great evergreen tree never have there burst forth flowers more beautiful nor more full of resemblance, if not in regard to the moral perfume which they exhale, at least in regard to the material form in which they array themselves before our eyes, than the images, Christian and Buddhist, of the Madonna. Even if, as we venture to foresee, the field of artistic comparisons must habitually be widened from one ocean to the other, the most universally attractive role will always revert to those figures which incarnate the maternal — and in some cases at the same time virginal — grace of the eternal feminine.

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We are indebted to the kindness of Sir Aurel STEIN for the communication of these two photographs. The first (no. 1) was taken by him *in situ* and in a slanting position, for want of sufficient space for the camera. The second (no. 2) was made at the British Museum and slightly retouched on the cheeks. Cf. pp. 285-6, and *Ruins of Desert Cathay* (London, 1912), II, p. 414 and pl. XI b.

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For another specimen from Chinese Turkestan we refer the reader to the frontispiece and pp. 271-5, — now also to the monumental publication of Dr. von LE COQ, *Chotscho* (Berlin, 1913), pl. 40.

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1 AFTER A WALL-PAINTING FROM DOMOKO (CHINESE TURKESTAN) (SIDE VIEW BEFORE REMOVAL)

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2 (AS SET UP IN BRITISH MUSEUM)

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I. — Lower half of an ivory plaque affixed to a Book of the Gospels, which was transferred in 1802 from Metz to the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (Ms. latins 10.438; exhibited [cf. *Notice des objets exposés*, Paris, 1881] in glass case XXX under no. 272). On the last page of the ms., in a handwriting of the end of the XVIIIth or the beginning of the XIXth century, there is a note in these terms : « Presented to the Chapter of the Holy Saviour at Metz by Bishop Aldaberon II (died Dec. 14, 1004), son of Duke Frederic and Beatrix, sister of Hugh Capet ». On either side of the Virgin's head are the uncial letters MP and ΘY representing MHTHP ΘEOY, « Mother of God ». For a description of the central figure cf. p. 278 or WESTWOOD, *A Descriptive Catalogue of the Fictile Ivories...* (London, 1876), p. 384. Joseph, of smaller size, sits to the left, deep in thought; to the right stands a female attendant, whose hands are hidden under what looks like a swaddling-cloth.

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The fact of the nursing Virgin, so unusual in the west till the XIVth century, the crouching Joseph, the presence of the maid-servant, in short, every part in the exceptional design of this « homely tableau de genre » are so many reasons, adduced by AD. GOLDSCHMIDT (*Die Elfenbeinskulpturen aus der Zeit der Karolingschen und Sächsischen Kaiser*, Berlin, 1914, pl. XXXII, no. 79 and p. 44), for calling in question the genuineness of the plaque, which he takes to be a forgery dating about 1800. But a curious passage in the Protevangelium of James, xix. 2, to which M. GAB. MILLET has kindly drawn our attention, would perhaps explain the startling peculiarities, if it not completely vindicate the authenticity, of this piece : « And they stood in the place where the cave was, and behold a bright light overshadowed the cave. And the midwife said... And gradually that light withdrew until the babe was seen, and it came and took the breast from mother Mary. And the midwife cried out... » (*The Apocryphal Gospels*, by B. HARRIS COWPER, 4th Ed., London, 1874 : *The Gospel of James*, c. xix, pp. 20-1). The fact that the feminine attendant on the right plays so well the part of the midwife waiting to receive the child renders it highly probable that the ivory-carver had this strange tale in his mind.

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II. — The Coptic Virgin of Saqqara is reproduced from the water-colour copy by Mrs. QUIBBELL, published in J. E. QUIBBELL, *Excavations at Saqqara*, II, 1908, pl. XL. In the attitude of the child Jesus, holding his mother's fore-arm with his two hands, we must recognize a curious artistic survival; for it is exactly the same as that of Horus nursed by Isis. (Cf. p. 278.)

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2. COPTIC VIRGIN

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1. ROMANESQUE VIRGIN

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I. — From a photograph taken by the author at the British Museum (height of the original m. 0.71). The image has already been published by Dr. BURGESS (J. of Ind. Art and Ind., 1898, pl. 4, 2). It reminds us distantly of the type of Demeter. The bosoms are placed very high, as is usual in the school of Gandhāra. The head of Piṅgala is partly broken. At the bottom, on the goddess' right, ought we to recognize two donors? The other persons — one of whom, on the right, is feeding a parrot, whilst two others, on the left, are wrestling, a fourth raises a fruit to his mouth and a fifth is crouched on the front of the stand — evidently form part of the troop of little demons, progeny of Hārītī. (Cf. p. 283).

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II. — From a photograph taken by the author at the Lahore Museum (height of the original 1 metre) : it is the statue found by Col. Deane at Sikri, published already by M. E. SENART in the Journal Asiatique, febr.-march 1890, pl. III), and since reproduced by Dr BURGESS (J. I. A. I., 1898, pl. 3, 2). Notice the very ungraceful protuberance formed by the jewelled belt under the drapery. The difference of costume between the two figures of the plate arises from the fact that no. I, in addition to the long dhotī and shawl, wears also a tunic with sleeves, and even sleeves folded into little plaits.

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INDO-GREEK IMAGES OF HARITI IN GANDHARA

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I. — Group, consisting of Pāñcika and Hāritī, now in the Peshawar Museum, and reproduced from a photograph kindly lent by Dr. J. Ph. Vogel. It comes from the excavations made by Dr. D. B. Spooner at Sahri-Bahlol, and has already been published by him in *Arch. Surv. India, Annual Report*, 1906-7, pl. XXXII, *c*. In his hands, both broken, the genius of riches must have held (right) his lance and (left) the purse which Hāritī, apparently, was helping him to exhibit to the gladdened eyes of the faithful (cf. pp. 141-3 and 283). In addition to the nursling of the goddess we see also around them five other *putti*, whilst sixteen more play about on the pedestal.

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II. — This photograph, taken by the author, represents only the central part of the panel, with the image of the goddess (cf. pp. 264 and 284). For a complete picture we may have recourse to the photograph published by Dr. J. Ph. Vogel in the *B. É. F. E.-O.*, IV, 1904, p. 727.

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1. — HĀRITĪ AND HER PARTNER IN GANDHĀRA

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2. — HĀRITĪ IN JAVA

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These two modern Japanese woodcuts belong (as also does no. 2 of pl. L) to the collection of Mr. Henry H. Getty, to whom we are indebted for the photographs and for permission to reproduce them. We have pointed out above (p. 287) the interest of their rapprochement.

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I. — The Hāritī on the left is erect and walking with little Pingala at her side. When we observe her frowning eyebrows, her angry features, her wide mouth garnished with its terrible row of teeth, her emaciated and withered bosom, her gesture of seizing prey, everything seems to express the primitive character of the ogress, reappearing under the customary mask of Buddhist serenity.

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II. — The one to the right, on the contrary, has retained not only a pose quite Indian (the same, in fact, which she affects at Ajaṇṭā; cf. Burgess, *Notes on the Rock Temples of Ajaṇṭā*, pl. VI), but also her placid aspect as a stout matron holding her favourite child in her lap.

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1 JAPANESE IMAGES OF KI SI MO JIN

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Cf. p. 287.

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I. — Statuette in white porcelain, belonging to the Musée Guimet, Paris. As Prof. Ed. Chavannes kindly informs us, it represents the Song-tseu Kuan-yin; the goddess holds in her lap the child (tseu) which she is supposed to bring (song) to the faithful. Her necklace is cross-shaped. She sits on a rock, encircled by two dragons and lotuses, and on her left is seen a book. The child is provided with a writing-pencil and a roll of paper. Before the pedestal stand to the right the golden boy (kin-t'ong) and to the left the jade girl (yu-nin). Height m. 0,38. It is well known that this type has been industrially reproduced in thousands of specimens.

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II. — Statuette of painted porcelain, belonging to the collection of Mr. Henry H. Gerry; it appeared in the Exhibition of Buddhist Art at the Musée Cernuschi in 1913. In the Catalogue we read: « No. 132. China. Ceramics. Kuan-yin with the child, standing on the tao-tié. China ware decorated with coral red. ». Her polychromy, the sveltness of her proportions, the adorable awkwardness with which she holds the child standing on her left hand, everything, even the grinning monster which she treads under her feet, combines to give her, in spite of her Chinese costume, the bearing of a « primitive » Virgin, and to win for her the keen appreciation of amateurs.

The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c12: The Buddhist Madonna

The Buddhist Madonna

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