The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c9.93

c9.93

It follows that we must at the outset suspect the existence of this subject every time that we find ourselves in the presence of multiple images of Buddha : not, certainly, where they are isolated in separate sections or merely juxtaposed, but where they are evidently associated in the same action (¹). If from this point of view we examine the reliefs and the frescoes of Ajaṇṭâ, we shall not fail to discover a whole series of replicas, somewhat less prolix, but not less surely identifiable, than the preceding. Here we will restrict ourselves to citing the most typical of these variants. It seems that we shall have to look for them in the immediate neighbourhood of the inner sanctuaries : « On the back wall, between the left chapel and antechamber [of the adytum of cave II], a large Buddha has seated himself under an *âmba* (mango) tree with an Indra on his right and a Bodhisattva on his left (²). His feet rest on a