Page:Footfalls of Indian History.djvu/127

THE ANCIENT ABBEY OF AJANTA 97 this was the common beHef on the matter in the seventh century, moreover, appears highly probable from the Life of Hiouen Tsang, whose biographer and disciple Hwui Li represents him as bearing back to China, and passing through the country of Takkha or Gandhara on the way, a precious load of books and images, and amongst these first, and evidently most sacred and important, that of Buddha preaching his First Sermon at Benares, fully described. From this it is clear that in China, in the seventh century at all events, India was regarded as the source of authentic images as well as of authoritative texts and their interpretations. To India, and more especially to Magadha, the East turned again and again to refresh and deepen her own inspiration. For final pronouncements men did not look to the schools of the frontier countries and daughter churches.

Now there are to be found in Behar, the ancient Magadha, to this day, the vestiges of a long history of Buddhist sculpture in many phases and develop- ments. No one has ever denied to India the pre-Buddhistic existence of secular sculpture of the human form. In front of the chaitya at Karli (date 129 B.C.) we find integral figures of men and women which may be portraits of kings and queens, or of donors and their wives. In the Rail of Bharhut we find figures in the round, and abundance of animal representation. And the whole range of Naga-types is common from the earliest times.

No one has ever pretended that these sculptures