The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c7.s1.t2.5

c7.s1.t2.5

We have enumerated above (p. 71) the reasons which militate in favour of the identification of this series of stories with those of the Buddhist paradise. They would therefore serve respectively as dwelling-places, (1) for « the Four Great Kings », guardians of the four cardinal points (the necessity of housing all four of them would explain the absence of bayadères in the compartment to the right of the lower panel, at the same time that their subordinate character would justify the line of demarcation traced by the roof of the palace between them and the following ones); — (2) for the Thirty-three Gods over whom Indra reigns, and (3) for those ruled by Yama; — (4) for the Satisfied Gods (*Tushita*), among whom the Bodhisattva resided before his last re-descent upon earth; (5) for the Gods who dispose of their own creations; — (6) and finally, for those who even dispose of the creations of others, and whose king Mâra, God of Desire and Death, extends his empire over the five lower heavens. As for the two persons on the terrace, they would represent the last divinities still visible to our human eyes, those of Brahmâ’s world.