A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c13.s7.22

c13.s7.22

The best known monument in the island is the vast pyramidal pile of Boro-Būdūr, ‘a hill in nine stages,’ combining the character of a *stūpa* or *dāgaba* with that of a temple. As an architectural composition the building, more than 400 feet square at the base, is of small account. Its importance in the history of art depends upon the immense series of about 2,000 bas-reliefs adorning the galleries, which, if laid end to end, would extend more than two miles.⁴ The best reliefs are the panels of the so-called ‘second gallery’, exceeding two hundred in number, which are arranged in two series. The upper series presents in easily recognizable stone pictures the life of Buddha, as told in the ancient Sanskrit work the *Lalita Vistara*. The scenes of the lower series, artistically of equal merit, resisted interpretation until lately, but have now been proved to be illustrations of the *Divyāvadāna* and other Buddhist romances, including some of the *Jātakas*, or stories of the former lives of Buddha. About two-thirds of the 120 panels in that series have now been identified, and in time the balance probably will yield their secrets. The intention of the designer of the monument was that the worshipper, while making his ritual perambulation (*pradakshiṇa*) of the building, should be instructed ocularly in the whole doctrine of Buddhism, according to the system of the *Mahāyāna*, or ‘Great Vehicle’.¹