The purpose of this publication is to place before students interested
in Eastern art reproductions of select specimens from among the great
collection of ancient Buddhist paintings which in the course of the
explorations of my second Central-Asian journey, carried out in 1906–8
under the orders of the Government of India, I had the good fortune to
recover from a walled-up chapel at the ‘Caves of the Thousand Buddhas’
near Tun-huang. The essential facts concerning their discovery will be
found summarized in Mr. Laurence Binyon’s _Introductory Essay_. Those
who may wish for details of the circumstances attending it, and for
some account of the local conditions which explain the preservation of
these relics of ancient Buddhist art in the distant region where the
westernmost Marches of true China adjoin the great deserts of innermost
Asia, will find them in my personal narrative of that expedition.[1]
They have been recorded still more fully in _Serindia_, the final
report on the results of my explorations, recently issued from the
Oxford University Press.[2]
In Mr. Binyon’s _Introductory Essay_ there will be found a lucid
exposition, by the hand of a competent expert, of the reasons which
invest those paintings with special interest for the study of Buddhist
art as transplanted from India through Central Asia to the Far East,
and with great importance, too, for the history of Chinese art in
general. There light is thrown also on the manifold problems raised by
the variety of art influences from the West, the South, and the East
which are reflected in different groups of these paintings and which
some of them show in striking intermixture.
But throughout it is Buddhist inspiration and legend, as propagated
by the Mahāyāna system of Buddhism in Central and Eastern Asia, which
furnish the themes of these paintings and determine the presentation
of individual figures and scenes in them. For the proper appreciation
of their art some knowledge of the traditional elements in subjects
and treatment is indispensably needed. It has hence been my aim
in the descriptive text referring to each Plate to supply such
iconographic information as the non-specialist student may need for the
comprehension of the subject and details, and as the present state of
our researches permits to be safely offered. In the same descriptive
notes I have endeavoured to record information also as to the state of
preservation, character of workmanship, colouring, and similar points
in each painting.
Having thus briefly indicated the object and scope of this publication,
it still remains for me to give some account of the labours which
had to precede it, and to record my grateful acknowledgement of
the manifold help which alone rendered the realization of this
long-cherished plan possible in the end. In Mr. Binyon’s _Introductory
Essay_ reference has been made to the protracted and delicate
operations which were needed at the British Museum before the hundreds
of paintings, most of them on fine silk, which had lain, often crumpled
up into tight little packets, for centuries under the crushing weight
of masses of manuscript bundles, could all be safely opened out,
cleaned, and made accessible for examination. The far-reaching artistic
interest of these pictures had already greatly impressed me when I
first beheld them in their original place of deposit. But only as the
work of preservation progressed did it become possible fully to realize
the wealth and variety of all these materials, the novel problems they
raised, and the extent and difficulties of the labours which their
detailed study and interpretation would need.
The mixture of influences already referred to revealed itself plainly
in features directly derived from Graeco-Buddhist art and in marks of
the change it had undergone on its passage through Central Asia or
Tibet. But the preponderance of Chinese taste and style was all the
same unmistakable from the first. On the iconographic side, too, it
soon became clear that the varied imagery displayed by the paintings,
though based on Indian conceptions and forms, bore the impress of
important changes undergone on its transition to China and after its
adoption there. The chief hope of guidance for the interpretation
of this Pantheon lay manifestly in comparison with the artistic
creations of the later Mahāyāna Buddhism of the Far East, especially of
Japan, and in the Chinese inscriptions displayed by many of the silk
paintings. It was obvious hence that for this part of my collection
a collaborator was needed who with knowledge of Buddhist iconography
would combine the qualifications of a Sinologue as well as familiarity
with Far-Eastern art in general.
Through Mr. Binyon’s friendly intercession I was able in the autumn
of 1911 and towards the close of my stay in England to secure this
collaborator, and one exceptionally qualified, in the person of M.
Raphael Petrucci. Already distinguished in more than one field of
research, M. Petrucci combined enthusiastic devotion to Far-Eastern art
as a critic, connoisseur, and collector, with Sinologue studies begun
under such a master as M. Chavannes. A series of important publications
on the art of China and Japan bears eloquent testimony to his eminent
fitness for what was bound to prove a difficult task. During the
following two years M. Petrucci devoted protracted labours to the
study of our paintings and their inscriptions. The results were to be
embodied in an extensive Appendix to _Serindia_, probably requiring a
separate volume.
In 1913 he supplied me with the draft of his introductory chapter
dealing with the votive inscriptions of our paintings, and after my
start that year for a third Central-Asian expedition he discussed in a
separate essay those elaborate compositions or ‘Maṇḍalas’ which form
the subject of some of the largest and artistically most interesting of
our paintings.[3] In addition to the above M. Petrucci had collected
a great mass of Chinese textual materials for the identification
of Jātaka scenes, individual divinities, &c., represented in the
paintings, when the invasion of Belgium cut him off from his home at
Brussels and all his materials. Under the conditions created by the
world war he was unable to resume his task in earnest. But he found
occasion even then, in the midst of voluntarily undertaken medical
duties under the Belgian Red Cross, to revisit our Collection, to
assist with his expert advice in the cataloguing of the Tun-huang
paintings, and to publish in the _Annales_ of the Musée Guimet a short
but very instructive and stimulating _conférence_ on them.[4]
When returning in May 1916 from my third Central-Asian expedition,
I found M. Petrucci at Paris, still full of vigour and eagerly bent
upon carrying through his task. When a few weeks afterwards I was able
to inform him of the fortunate chance which, as will be explained
presently, had offered to make select specimens of our Tun-huang
paintings accessible in adequate reproductions to a wider circle of
students of Far-Eastern art, he most willingly undertook to contribute
the main portion of the text which was to accompany them. But some
months later he began to suffer from an internal ailment, and though in
the autumn of 1916 he was still strong enough to take a very helpful
share in the selection of the paintings to be reproduced in _The
Thousand Buddhas_, his condition became serious enough to necessitate
a grave operation in February 1917. This he overcame with apparent
success, only to succumb a week later to diphtheritis contracted in
the hospital. Deprived thus by a cruel blow of Fate of a most valued
collaborator and friend, we must rest content with dedicating to his
memory this publication in which he was to have borne a principal share.
In accordance with the plan sanctioned in 1911 by the Secretary of
State for India, the Detailed Report on the results of my second
Central-Asian expedition was to include also a systematic survey and
full descriptive list of all the art relics brought away from the Caves
of the Thousand Buddhas. With this object in view I had taken care, at
the same time when enlisting M. Petrucci’s collaboration, to use as
many plates of _Serindia_ as the claims of abundant ‘finds’ from other
sites would allow, for the reproduction of characteristic specimens
among the different classes of paintings, drawings, and wood-cuts
recovered in the walled-up chapel.[5] But it was clear from the first
that the limitations imposed by the number and size of the _Serindia_
plates, and even more perhaps by the cost of colour reproduction,
would not allow adequate justice being done to the artistic, as
distinguished from the iconographic and archaeological, value of the
paintings. It was equally easy to foresee that, however numerous the
small-scale reproductions in the plates of _Serindia_ might be, and
however thorough the description and analysis of the new materials in
its text, the very character, bulk, and correspondingly high price
of that detailed report would prevent it from making those paintings
sufficiently accessible to students interested mainly in their art.
For these and cognate reasons I had been anxious from the outset to
arrange for a separate publication like the present. But the attempts
made in this direction before my return to duty in India at the
close of 1911 failed from want of needful means, and subsequently
distance and absorbing exertions in the field, as implied by my third
Central-Asian expedition (1913–16), precluded their effective renewal.
That auspices proved more favourable on my return from that journey was
due mainly to the generous interest which a far-sighted statesman, the
Right Honourable Mr. Austen Chamberlain, then H.M. Secretary of State
for India, was pleased to show in the plan. His appreciation of the
importance of these pictorial treasures and of the need of securing
an adequate record of them before their impending division between
the British Museum and Delhi was largely instrumental in inducing the
authorities of the India Office, with the ready co-operation of the
Trustees of the British Museum, to sanction the present publication
at a cost not exceeding £1,900. Regard for the special difficulties
then prevailing owing to the war is an additional reason for Mr.
Chamberlain’s timely help being remembered by me with profound
gratitude.
The execution of the plates, both by three-colour and half-tone
process, was entrusted to Messrs. Henry Stone & Son, of Banbury, whose
establishment, under the expert direction of Mr. J. A. Milne, C.B.E.,
had already proved its special fitness for such work by producing the
colour plates for my _Desert Cathay_ and _Serindia_.[6] I feel all the
more grateful for the great skill and care bestowed by them upon the
truthful rendering of the paintings, and for the success achieved,
because I learned to know the considerable technical difficulties which
had to be faced, particularly in the case of the colour plates. After
my return to India in the autumn of 1917 Mr. Binyon kindly charged
himself in my place with all the arrangements which were needed in
connexion with the reproduction work.
It was under the constant and ever-watchful supervision of Mr. Laurence
Binyon that the exacting labours needed for the safe treatment and
future preservation of the Ch‘ien-fo-tung paintings, and extending over
a period of close on seven years, had been effected in the Prints and
Drawings Department of the British Museum. To his unfailing knowledge
and care all students of these remains of Buddhist art owe gratitude
for the ease with which they can now be examined. But to those whom
the present publication is intended to reach he has rendered a service
equally great by contributing to it his _Introductory Essay_, The
expert guidance it affords as regards the evolution of Buddhist
pictorial art in the Far East and with regard to a variety of kindred
questions helps appreciably to reduce the loss which _The Thousand
Buddhas_ has suffered through M. Petrucci’s untimely death, and for
that help I feel deeply beholden.
That lamented event left me with a heavier obligation than I had
anticipated in regard to the text both of this publication and of
the corresponding portion of _Serindia_. In meeting this obligation I
realize fully the limitations of my competence. Though familiar with
the iconography of Graeco-Buddhist art and of such remains of Buddhist
art in Central Asia as I had the good fortune to bring to light myself,
I had never found leisure for a systematic study of the religious art
of the Far East or Tibet. There was enough in the archaeology of the
sites I had explored through the whole length of the Tārīm Basin and
along the westernmost Marches of China and in the geography and history
of those wide regions fully to occupy my attention. In addition, my
want of Sinologue qualifications made itself sadly felt.
Fortunately I had taken special care to secure a sufficiently
detailed description of all pictorial remains during the years of my
renewed absence in Central Asia and those immediately following. This
Descriptive List, now comprised in _Serindia_,[7] was prepared mainly
by the hand of Miss F. M. G. Lorimer, whose painstaking scholarly work
as assistant at my British Museum collection has proved throughout a
very valuable help. Besides M. Petrucci’s interpretations there was
embodied in it also much useful information received on artistic points
from my friend and chief assistant Mr. F. H. Andrews, and on Chinese
inscriptions from Dr. L. Giles and Mr. A. D. Waley of the British
Museum, as well as many helpful iconographic explanations kindly
furnished by two Japanese experts, Professor Taki and Mr. Yabuki. This
Descriptive List made it possible for me to provide in _Serindia_ a
systematic review of all our pictorial relics from Tun-huang,[8] and
this in turn has greatly facilitated the preparation of the descriptive
text for the present publication. For details which could not find
mention in it reference to the chapters of _Serindia_ already quoted
will prove useful.
It only remains for me to add my grateful acknowledgements for the
care which my friends Mr. F. H. Andrews, Mr. L. Binyon, and Mr. C.
E. Freeman have been kind enough to bestow, whether on plates or on
print, and to express the wish that the reception accorded to _The
Thousand Buddhas_ both in the West and the East may justify the hope
which prompted the sacrifice incurred for their sake at a time of great
strain and stress.