A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c9.s2.65

c9.s2.65

¹ 'The outward form, Brethren, of him who has won the truth (*Tathāgata*) stands before you, but that which binds it to rebirth is cut in twain. So long as his body shall last, so long do gods and men behold him. On the dissolution of the body, beyond the end of his life, neither gods nor men shall see him' ('Brahmajāla Sutta,' transl. Rhys Davids, *Dialogues of the Buddha*, p. 54). The absence of images of Buddha from early Indian art does not imply that images of the Hindu gods were then unknown. They were certainly in use as early as the fourth century B.C. (*Ind. Ant.*, xxxviii (1909), pp. 145–9).