A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c14.s2.88

c14.s2.88

The elegant decorative designs of Cave I have been described and illustrated (*ante*, Fig. 202, Plate LV). The numerous large wall-pictures include the Temptation of Buddha, a subject also effectively treated in sculpture in Cave XXVI, not far removed in date (*ante*, Plate XXXIX). Another large picture, showing the reception of a Persian embassy by an Indian king with full court ceremonial, is of special interest because its approximate date may be fixed with a high degree of probability between A. D. 626 and 628. If, as is almost certain, the Indian king represented is Pulakesin II, the sovereign of the Deccan, an embassy of Persians to him can have come only from Khusrū Parvīz, who was put to death in A. D. 628. An Arabic historian records the fact that in A. D. 626 Pulakesin sent presents to the Persian monarch, accompanied by letters to his sons, and such a mission must have been returned, although no literary record of the return embassy has survived. Pulakesin himself perished in 642.