The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c5.s4.5

c5.s4.5

Henceforward there is only one way, in conformity with the living reality, of conceiving the study of the ancient Indian school. Its history is that of a struggle, more or less surreptitious, between the two tendencies which divided it against itself, an irrepressible desire for new scenes and a superstitious respect for its precedents. On the one hand, it experiences a growing need for the form of Buddha to serve as a centre or pivot for the scenes of his life; and on the other hand, it accepts as an axiom that, in order to represent the Blessed One, it suffices to do what until then had always been done, that is, to evoke him by the sight of one of his three speaking emblems. Watch it at work. The tumulus of the *Parinirvâna*, the ultimate end of the career of the Master, was *ipso facto* beside the point, when it was a question of representing some incident in that career. The symbol of the wheel, specialized in the representation of the « First Preaching », could scarcely be employed again, except on the occasion of the similar miracle wrought at Çrâvastî for the greater confusion of the rival sects (¹). There remained for ordinary employment in miracles of the second rank the heraldic emblem already utilized for the Sambodhi. And, in fact, we can well see how the studios of Central India resign themselves once for all to this procedure and accommodate themselves more or less successfully thereto. All the same, they cannot resist slipping in here and there a few variants, or even trying on occasions some different course. It is under an empty throne, surmounted by a tree, that at Barhut Buddha receives the visit of the nâga Elâpatra; when he preaches in the heaven of the Thirty-three Gods, the motif is in addition graced with a parasol; and this latter, in its turn, takes the place of the tree on the occasion of the visit of Indra or Ajâtąçatru. At times the throne by itself does the work. In two cases, on the eastern gate of Sânchi, the school even ventures so far as to avail itself solely of the « promenade », or caṅkrama, of the Master in order to suggest his presence (²). But the boldness of its innovations goes no further, and we very quickly reach the limits of its audacity. We have indeed sketched them above (pp. 4-5), and it would have been superfluous to return to the matter, did we not now believe that we have divined the raison d'être, and actually the manner of production, of the strange anomalies which at the beginning of this study we had to confine ourselves to stating.