Page:Footfalls of Indian History.djvu/131

THE ANCIKNT ABBEY OF AJANTA 99 It must have been soon after Asoka that attempts were made to evolve a portrait-statue of Buddha. In accordance with the Indian character as well as with the severe truthfulness of early Hinayana doctrines, the first efforts in this direction would almost certainly be intensely realistic. They would be filled with a striving after literal fact. In far-away Sanchi, even as late as 150 B.C., we have the bas-reliefs on the great gateways representing anything and everything Buddhistic that could be worshipped save and except Buddha himself. But this is only what we might expect if, as we have supposed, precedence in this matter really belonged to Magadha. At some later date we find at Kenheri illustrations of the blending of the old school of art to which Sanchi belonged — in which a story was told, in picture form — and this new idea of the supernatural personage appearing as heroic amongst even the holiest of mortal men. This particular panel illustrates the Jatakas (birth- stories), which must have been the absorbing literature and romance of early Buddhism, and were in themselves only a hint of the place which the personality of its founder must sooner or later assume in the religion. This figure of a former Buddha is not naked, as might be supposed. It is merely clothed in muslin so fine as to be almost invisible. Griinwedel gives a reproduction of a clay seal from Bodh-Gaya, in which we have another specimen of this same period in the idealisation of the Buddha. The little turret-like patterns