Page:Footfalls of Indian History.djvu/168

I30 FOOTFALLS OF INDIAN HISTORY the stupa-shaped altar meant to the Buddhist worshipper. We begin to feel our way back to all that it implied. Sanctified by ages of consecration — for there was a pre-Buddhistic stupa-worship ; Newgrange, the Irish Sanchi, is a thousand years older than Buddha — men saw in that domed mound more than we now can ever fathom. Yet we may look at it and try to summon up all that we have felt for this symbol or for that. How curious are the things to which the heart of man has gone out in its fulness from time to time ! A couple of spars lashed together at right angles ; a couple of crescent-shaped axes back to back ; a cairn. And each of these has had the power in its day to make men die joyfully and merrily as a piece of good fortune ! Usually it is easier to imagine this when the emblem has taken to itself an icon or image. The crucifix might better make martyrs than the cross, one thinks. The' stupa with the Buddha upon it stirs one deeper than the stupa or dagoba alone. Yet here amongst the choir of saints we catch a hint of quite another feeling, and we under- stand that when the icon was added to the emblem faith was already dim.

The University of Ajanta departs in its paintings from primitive simplicity. Cave Sixteen is highly decorated, and Cave Seventeen a veritable labyrinth of beauty and narrative. Everywhere flames out some mighty subject, and everywhere are connecting links' and ornamental figures. Not once does inspiration fail, though the soft brightness to-day