The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c9.131

c9.131

It will be felt how far this question passes beyond the limits of the present article, and we will not here insist upon it further. All that remains to ask ourselves, in order to complete the study of the representations of the mahâ-prâtihârya, is whether it was represented or not on the most ancient monuments of central India. Now it seems indeed that the old native school had already essayed in regard to it one of those conventional and summary pictures of which it possessed the secret. The pillar of the southern entrance in the railing of the stûpa of Barhut has three of its faces decorated. Of the three upper bas-reliefs (¹), the first represents, we believe, by the symbol of the Bodhi-tree, the « perfect illumination »; the second, by the symbol of the stûpa, the parinirvâna; the third, by the symbol of the garlanded wheel, the « great miracle ». This, at least, is suggested by two inscriptions on the last named, from which we are not certain that all the admissible inferences have hitherto been drawn (see pl. XXVIII, 2). At the bottom a king issues from his capital, mounted in his quadriga : the