The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c5.s5.1

c5.s5.1

This is not all. The sculptors of the second century verify our hypothesis not only in what they reproduce and in what they imitate of the works of the past : we may maintain that they do this, also, indirectly, in what they innovate. However unreflecting and mechanical their submission to custom may have been, the forced absence of the protagonist from the scenes of his own biography could not help but inconvenience them considerably. Let the career of the Blessed One be no more than a monotonous tissue of conversations more full of edification than movement ; yet only a small number of episodes allowed of being portrayed independently of the principal personage. With the aid of what subjects were the artists to cover the numerous medallions, the long stretches, or the high gates of the stūpa balustrades? The first expedient of which they