The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c9.149

c9.149

but they both forget to tell us on what kind of seat and accompanied by what attendants. Accordingly, do not ask why the connection between the narratives and the representations of the « Great Miracle » has been so tardily realized. Cease likewise to be astonished that we are still even at the present time posed by the question whether the two divine acolytes retained to the very last (as we are certain they did in the representation of the « Descent from Heaven ») their names of Brahmâ and Çakra, or whether they ended by transforming themselves, in the eyes of the faithful, into Bodhisattvas, and, in that case, at what moment the transformation took place. Fa-hien and Hiuan-tsang tell us nothing concerning this. One feels how valuable their testimony would have been to us, by reason of its mean date as also of the central situation of the country from which they would have borrowed its elements, forming a bridge between the ancient works of the north-west and the later, but identified, productions of eastern India. If we have been able ultimately to dispense with it, this is because the stele recently discovered at Sârnâth and immediately published by Mr. Marshall put into our hands precisely the missing middle of the conducting wire, and thenceforward all that we have had to do has been to follow its direction, downwards to the disappearance, upwards to the sources of Buddhist art. For this let us thank the Archæological Survey!