The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c12.21

c12.21

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).