The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c7.2

c7.2

The visitor to the Indian Museum in London, the Musée Guimet in Paris, or the Museum für Völkerkunde in Berlin, cannot fail to notice among the objects therein exhibited a monumental gate covered with bas-reliefs; but there is every chance in the world that he will confine himself to casting a quick, heedless glance towards it in passing. A reproduction of a remote Indian original, this moulding naturally cannot have any claim to speak to our European eyes or to awaken in our minds the remembrance of any traditional legend. But then let us bring before it any native of India; he will remain as puzzled and, if he is candid, as silent as we. Do not, however, hastily conclude from this that these sculptures have never had any meaning for anyone, because to-day their compatriots themselves no longer understand anything about them. Only imagine a similar experiment to be tried with us, and that we were set down, for example, before one of the porches of the cathedral of Chartres; how many would be able to read without preparation in the magnificent illustrated Bible so suddenly opened before them? You know that in the eighteenth century no one would have been found capable of this: and in the nineteenth it required a whole phalanx of patient investigators to rediscover the lost meaning of the scenes and figures painted on the windows, or carved under the vaults, by our image-makers of the Middle Ages. The conditions are exactly the same for this Ga e of Sânchî; with time the subject of its bas-reliefs has ended by becoming, even for the descendants of those who once built or carved it, a veritable enigma. I invite you to join me in investigating its meaning.