A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c10.s2.53

c10.s2.53

The well-known unique relief representing a group of figures with demoniac faces attended by three soldiers (Plate XXX) has puzzled the interpreters, who usually assume the demons to be a part of the host by which Buddha was assailed in the Temptation. But that explanation takes no account of the soldiers. I do not believe that the picture has anything to do with the Temptation. I think it was Dr. Leitner who perceived that the so-called demons are simply monks wearing masks for a ‘devil dance’, such as those now worn by Tibetan Lamas. The soldiers are merely the escort of the performers’ procession. The equipment of the soldiers has been described sometimes as Greek and sometimes as Roman. But it is neither. The men evidently belong to the Himalayan region, and wear the dress and armour used in that region about the time of Kanishka, say A.D. 100. The arrangement of the scales of the armour, probably made of either leather or horn, with the curved ends uppermost, is explained by Dr. Stein’s discoveries of similar scales at Dandān-Uiliq in Khotan, and by a suit of Tibetan mail preserved in the British Museum.