Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/508

 426 FURTHER INDIA. BOOK VIII. little historical importance. The first enclosed or, as the Dutch call it, the second gallery is, of all the five, the most interesting historically. On its inner wall the whole life of Sakyamuni is portrayed in 120 bas-reliefs of the most elaborate character. The first twenty-four of these are occupied with scenes in the Tusita heavens, or events that took place before the birth. In the twenty-fifth we have Maya's dream, depicted exactly as it is at Bharaut or Sanchi, 800 or 900 years earlier. In the following sculptures it is easy to recognise all the familiar scenes of his life, his marriage, and domestic happiness, till he meets the four predictive signs ; his subsequent departure from home, and assumption of the ascetic garb ; his life in the forest ; his preaching in the Deer-garden at Benares the whole Lalita Vistara, in short, portrayed with very few variations from the pictures we already possess from Gandhara to Amaravati, with this singular exception : in all Indian examples the birth and the Nirvana are more frequently repeated than any other events ; for some reason, not easily guessed, they are omitted here, though all the events that preceded and followed them are minutely detailed. 1 Below these bas-reliefs depicting the life of Buddha is an equally extensive series of 120 bas-reliefs of subjects taken from the Jataka, all of which may be easily identified. In the three galleries above this Buddhism is represented as a religion. Groups of Buddhas three, five, or nine are repeated over and over again, mixed with Bodhisattwas and saints of all sorts. Among these, the five Dhyani, Buddhas are conspicuous in all, perhaps more than all, the variety of manifestations which are known in Nepal and Tibet, which, as Lassen points out, almost inevitably leads to the conclusion that this form of faith was introduced from Nepal or Western Tibet. 2 Whether this is exactly so or not, no one probably who is familiar with Buddhist art in its latest age on the western side of India will probably doubt that it was from these parts that the builders of Boro-Budur migrated. The character of the sculptures, and the details of the ornamentation in Cave 26 at Ajanta, and 17 at Nasik, and more especially in the later caves at Kanheri in Salsette, at Kondivte, MagatMna, and other places in that neighbourhood, are so nearly identical with what is found in the Javan monument, that the identity of the workman- 1 All these, or nearly all, have been identified by Dr. Leemans in the text that accompanies the plates. See also Pleyte, des tempels von Boro-Boedcer,' 1901 ; Foucher, ' Notes d'Archeologie Boudd- hique' in 'Bull, de I'Ecole Fran$aise d'extreme-Orient ' torn. ix. 1909, pp. iff. 2 ' Indische Alterthumskunde,' vol. iv. p. 467.
 * Die Buddha-legende in den Sculpturen