The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c5.s2.9

c5.s2.9

in the peninsula of Malacca and in Annam (¹). Do we compromise ourselves very much by conjecturing that these sacred emblems are in Buddhism the remains of a tradition which goes back to the four great primitive pilgrimages? The worst that could result from it would be that Buddhist art must have owed its origin to the satisfaction of a need everywhere and always experienced, and, we may almost say, of one of the religious instincts of humanity. It would be difficult to imagine a theory more humble and more prosaic : it is in our opinion only the more probable for that, nor do we see what other we can substitute, if, at least, we are unwilling to attribute to that art any but a rational origin.