The Buddhist Art of Gandhara: The Story of the Early School, its Birth, Growth and Decline c4.11

c4.11

One other point. The main theme of this book is the history of Buddhist art in Gandhāra from a chronological and aesthetic, not from an iconographic, point of view. It was not, therefore, essential that I should explain the meaning of the many Jātaka and Life stories which occur among the reliefs and which occupy a substantial part of the text. I have done so, because I am well aware that relatively few readers are likely to be familiar with these stories and I believe that for the rest it will enhance the value of the illustrations if their meaning is explained. In this connexion I have made free use of the descriptions given in Alfred Foucher’s work quoted above and in Harold Hargreaves’s two catalogues of the sculptures in the Peshāwar and Taxila Museums; and I welcome this opportunity of acknowledging my indebtedness to these two distinguished authorities on Buddhist iconography.