The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c9.89

c9.89

and no one will be surprised to learn that there it forms a pendant to another of the eight great scenes, « the Perfect Illumination », symbolized on the left wall by the Māra-dharṣaṇa. The high reliefs of plate XX merely reproduce it in stone : in imitation of the painting the sculptor has not failed to fill the space between his characters with leaves and buds of pink lotuses, of the same kind even as those which bear his superposed rows of Buddhas (¹). Only it will be observed that the stem of the seat of the central figure, at the bottom, is supported with both hands by two kneeling nāgarājas, both wearing head-dresses of five serpent heads. As we have just been reading the Divyāvadāna, their names immediately occur to our minds : they are Nanda and Upananda. Thus we find ourselves in possession of an explanation satisfactory down to the details of the compositions. We have not, as was thought, to do with simple debauches of piously decorative imagery : we must here recognize representations on a vast scale, by reason of the space which the artist had at his disposal, of the « great miracle » of Çrāvastī (²). This is indeed, if one reflects upon it, the only orthodox method of explaining the simultaneous presence of several Buddhas in the same picture, when an absolute law says that there shall never be