The Ancient and Medieval Architecture of India: A Study of Indo-Aryan Civilisation c17.29

c17.29

In Hînayâna architecture one would find the Vedic rail used to decorate the architrave above the pillars. Here it is replaced by a sculptured frieze showing incidents in the life of the Buddha or stories from the Jâtakas. Above this frieze is the chhaja, ornamented as usual with miniature sun-windows. In each of the windows a head appears. We have seen before, in the Bharhut sculptures (Pl. III, A), representations of men or Devas peeping out of sun-windows. Who can this be? That is a question which Buddhist pilgrims, accustomed to the plain sun-windows of Hînayâna symbolism, might well have asked as they gazed upwards, after following with eager eyes the story of the Master’s life on the sculptured frieze. On a Vishnu or Siva shrine the devout would know at once that within a sun-window the image must be either Brahmâ or Siva, the rising or setting sun. “What do our gurus mean by this?” the pilgrims would ask. “It is Avalokiteshvara,” the monks would answer—“the Lord who looks down from Heaven upon us; not the Tathâgata Himself, but a Bodhisattva, a Buddha in being.”¹