Page:Footfalls of Indian History.djvu/115

THE ANCIENT ABBEY OF AJANTA 87 anterior to Nineteen. Therefore, we shall here rely upon the Sarnath Buddha, as found during the evolution of the type, in Caves Eleven to Seventeen only.

With Cave Nineteen we come suddenly upon a new type. Here the Buddha on the great dagoba is standing in what is now commonly known as the teaching attitude ; though in truth the monks and their students who used the viharas, probably thought of the attitude of the First Sermon as that of the teaching Buddha. Be this as it may, the standing Buddha of the dagoba is clothed in a choga over and above his muslin underclothing. And this choga is not unlike the garment also to be found on the gold coins of Kanishka. It is in truth a yellow robe, and not merely the yellow cloth, of the Buddhist monk. It is in any case a clear and indubitable sign of the intercourse between Ajanta and the colder regions of north-western India, and marks the influence of the latter at this particular moment upon the Buddhist symbolism of Central India. This influence is borne out in many ways by subordinate evidence, into which we need not enter at present. The point now is. Had India already owed the idea of the Sarnath Buddha itself to this same stream of north-west influence on her arts ?

Ordinarily speaking, we are accustomed to take for granted that an artistic style has arisen more or less in the neighbourhood of the place in which we find it. It requires no argument to convince us