The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c9.138

c9.138

Thus we should end by restoring to this subject of the mahâ-prâtihârya the sphere which legitimately belongs to it and which until now had been too parsimoniously measured out. We are now in a position to sketch its history from the earliest to the last surviving monuments. Treated allegorically — and with good reason — by the old native school, it is not long in utilizing for its own advantage the type of Buddha created by Indo-Greek art. From the outset it adopts that *mudrā* of instruction (¹) and especially that particular *lakṣaṇa* of the lotus with a stem, both of which it will retain as characteristic signs from end to end of its evolution. Under its most restricted aspect, as at Barhut, it counts only two attendant divinities : but on other replicas these latter multiply themselves and mingle with apparitions of Buddhas. It is chiefly these latter that are retained by the stelæ of Benares, and, after their example, by the later productions from the basin of the Ganges, whilst western India to the very end reserves the best place for the divine acolytes. At the same time, the composition, which had finally on the vast walls of Ajaṇṭā attained a disproportionate development, returns, with the ultimate decadence, to the soberness of its commencements. All being taken into account, without going outside the Indian publications, and leaving aside the already identified miniatures of the manuscripts, we propose henceforward to inscribe the rubric of the « great miracle of Ṣrāvastī » under the following reproductions :