The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c9.66

c9.66

Of these two manifestations the first strikes one immediately as the more original and the more picturesque : one would have wagered that it must have thrust itself on the choice of the artists whose duty it was to decorate the Buddhist monuments with edifying scenes, or to compose pious *ex-votos* for the use of the laity. As a matter of fact, we have found in the ancient school of Gandhāra at least one indubitable representation of the « twin miracles » ; and even at the present moment the special attribution of this bas-relief to the *mahā-prātihārya* of Çrāvastī seems to us not in the least untenable, on the sole condition that we mark well its exceptional character (²). It was, besides, the accidental circumstance of this find that prevented our carrying still further our researches on this point. Nevertheless, as we had already observed, it was the scene of the manifold preaching of the Master that later, if we may judge from the miniatures of the manuscripts, inspired the traditional image of the « great miracle » : at least, they represent it regularly by three Buddhas teaching, seated side by side upon as many lotuses (¹). Now the stele recently exhumed from the ground of the ancient Mṛigadâva testifies, five or six centuries earlier, to this same manner of conceiving the subject : the compartment which we know beforehand to have been reserved for the miracle of Çrâvastî shows us, in fact, like the miniatures, three Buddhas seated on lotuses in the attitude of teaching. This is the new fact supplied by this discovery, and it will not be long before its consequences unfold themselves before our eyes.