The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c7.21

c7.21

¹ See below, Catalogue, § 4 a. This resemblance does not at all prove that we have already to do with the goddess Çrî. The frequency of this figure at Sânchî, where it recurs as many as 9 times (see above, p. 18, n. 1), the manner of its juxtaposition to the Bodhi-tree, the Wheel of the Law, and the Stûpa of the Parinirvâna suggest, on the contrary, that we are dealing with a symbolical representation of the Nativity, when the two Nâgas (here elephants; see below, p. 109), simultaneously bathed the mother and the unseen child. Accordingly, this scene should have been cited and discussed above, p. 20, had we not preferred to neglect for the moment a hypothesis still awaiting verification.