Page:Footfalls of Indian History.djvu/146

112 FOOTFALLS OF INDIAN HISTORY whose systole and diastole are felt to its remotest bounds with a certain rhythmic regularity of pulsation, as tides of thought and inspiration. All such will not be felt equally in all directions. In this case the work in Ceylon was the result of an early impulse, Gandhara much later, and possibly we should find, if this were the place to follow up the question, that Tibet was evangelised as the fruit of a still later pulsation of the central energy. This being so, the fact would stand proved that Gandhara was a disciple and not a guru in the matter of religious symbolism. The question is, Can this relationship be demonstrated, and how ?

A crucial test would be afforded if we could find anything in the art of Gandhara itself which might show it to be a derived style. Creative works, like myths, almost always include some unconscious sign-manual of their origin and relations. What they deliberately state may be untrue, or, as in the present case perhaps, may be misunderstood. But what they mention is usually eloquent, to patient eyes, of the actual fact. It has already been pointed out by Mr. E. B. Havell, in his Indian Sculpture and Painting, that even the Buddha-types, the serious affirmations of Gandharan art, could not possibly be mistaken for originals. And if anyone will take the trouble to go into the hall of the Calcutta Museum and look for himself, it is difficult to see how this argument can be answered. Who that has steeped himself in the eastern conception of the Buddha — unbroken calm, immeasur-