Page:Footfalls of Indian History.djvu/132

100 FOOTFALLS OF INDIAN HISTORY which accompany it are stupas. But the Buddha himself is imaged in front of a temple-stupa.

To this period probably belongs the story that when Ajatasatru wished for a portrait of the Teacher, he allowed his shadow to fall on a piece of cloth, and then the outline was filled in with colour. Granwedel suggests that this story shows a desire to claim canonical authority for the portrait-statue. Whether this be so or not, it certainly does indicate incidentally that the Buddhist world itself ascribed the origin of the Master's image to Magadha. The supreme example of this school of sculpture is undoubtedly the Great Buddha of Nalanda, which is to this day the pride of the country-folk at Baragaon, who call it Mahadev. To the same school belongs also the Buddha of the temple at Bodh-Gaya. And we cannot do better than take as an example of the type the Buddha from Anuradhapura in Ceylon.

These are true statues, not mere bas-reliefs. And perhaps the great proof of their early occurrence in the Buddhist series lies precisely here, that they were found in Ceylon, where the enthusiasm of Indian intercourse was a marked feature of the age immediately succeeding Asoka, and where the Hinayana theology would not be friendly to statuary like the images characteristic of a rich mythology.

The clay seal is of extraordinary interest. The Buddha himself appears to be seated in something like the temple of Bodh-Gaya, with branches of the sacred tree appearing behind and above.