A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c9.s2.76

c9.s2.76

The scenes represented in Fig. 48 are not less interesting for their subjects and dainty ivory-like carving, and each might supply material for lengthy comment. The most curious panel is the central one with three men in a boat, the record of a miracle on the occasion of an inundation of the Niranjana river. The lowest panel, M. Foucher informs me, appears to represent the visit of Bimbisāra to Buddha. The men and trees on land will assume their proper relative places if we imagine the figures to be on hinges and set up standing. This substitute for perspective continued to be used in Hindu pictures many centuries later in date, as we shall see in due course.