This and the following Plate, together with Plate XXXVII, illustrate
a group of paintings well represented among the silk banners of the
Collection and of special iconographic and artistic interest. Painted
like the rest of the silk banners on both sides of a fine gauze-like
fabric, they show scenes taken from the legendary life of Gautama
Buddha or closely connected with it. The usual length of the banners
(exclusive of the triangular top and other accessories) does not appear
to have much exceeded twenty-five inches, and their width, as seen from
the specimens which Plate XII reproduces full size, is restricted. As
a necessary result of the narrow shape of the banners, we find the
succession of scenes always arranged one above the other and in the
completely preserved ones limited to four.[21]
This group of paintings is as well defined in style as it is in
range of subjects and external arrangement. Everything in the scenes
connected with the physical types of the actors, their costumes and
movements, as well as the setting, whether architecture or landscape,
appears here ‘translated bodily into Chinese’, to use Mr. Binyon’s
graphic phrase. The traditional subjects of the historical Buddha’s
life-story have in fact, as M. Foucher has with equal pregnancy put
it, ‘undergone the same disguising transformation which Christian
legend has under the hands of the Italian or Flemish painters’.[22]
It contrasts strikingly with this, that the figures of Buddhas and
Bodhisattvas, in our banners and large paintings alike, show close
conformity in physical appearance and dress to the hieratic types
derived from the Graeco-Buddhist art of Gandhāra. For possible
explanations of the very interesting problem thus raised reference to
Mr. Binyon’s ‘Introductory Essay’ will suffice here.
Notwithstanding their frankly Chinese style, the banners with scenes
from Gautama Buddha’s Life show considerable diversity of composition
and treatment. We note these variations all the more easily because the
banners range themselves into small groups, one alone not affording
sufficient room for a representation of even the most important
incidents of the Life. Two banners of such a group, each with only two
scenes preserved out of the four which the original, no doubt, once
comprised, are shown in Plate XII on the left and right. Both banners
have the same decorated borders along the sides and between the several
scenes, and both have cartouches, here fortunately filled with Chinese
inscriptions naming the subjects represented.
The banner on the left (Ch. lv. 0016) shows us two of the famous ‘Four
Encounters’ which bring before Prince Gautama’s eyes the three evils
of earthly life—old age, illness, and death, and the means to escape
them by renunciation. We find them all represented already in the
fifth-century relievos of Yün-kang, while strangely enough they have
not yet been found among the Gandhāra sculptures.[23] Above we see
the prince riding out of the green-tiled gateway of the battlemented
courtyard wall of his father’s palace. Over it is shown a pavilion with
red timber framework and greenish-blue roof. The red-maned well-drawn
horse represents the Kaṇṭhaka of the legend. A courtier in flowing
robes with a high black cap attends him on foot. Before him under a
tree is shown the bent figure of the old man leaning upon a stick and
wearing on his head a black hood. Another man, who stands by his side
and evidently supports him, has the black lobed and tailed cap to which
reference has been made above as the head-dress worn by the donors of
our oldest Tun-huang paintings. It is that of all common personages in
our Jātaka scenes. The high conical head-dress of the courtier is found
also in the above-quoted relievo panels of Yün-kang.[24] Prince Gautama
himself in the scenes of both our banners here wears a head-ornament
resembling a white lotus.
In the scene below we see the prince riding with bent head from the
same palace gateway. Here it is shown on the right, and its interior
timber frame clearly displayed. The courtier by his side, attired
as above, approaches with compassionate expression the group on the
left. Here under a tree is seen sitting upon the ground the sick man,
supported by a friend in a red dress, while another in green offers him
drink in a bowl. The emaciation of his body and of his arms spread upon
his knees is shown with realistic skill.
In the companion banner on the right (Ch. xlix. 006) the lower scene,
composed in exactly the same style, represents Prince Gautama as a
child discoursing on his anterior lives to civil and military officers,
as the accompanying inscription tells us. The future Buddha sits on a
verandah of the palace, holding out his arms evidently in the act of
reciting his Jātaka tales. In front of him kneels a man, in black cap
and orange belted coat, holding a manuscript roll. On the ground below
stands a bearded personage wearing the dress of a civilian dignitary;
he also carries a roll in his hands, which are covered by the wide
sleeves of his robe. Two persons stand behind the prince outside the
verandah. One in the dress of an attendant carries in his arms a round
receptacle filled with small objects no longer recognizable. The other,
wearing a tall round black cap, a brown mantle, and white under-robe,
grasps with his right hand what from the gesture seems to be the hilt
of a sword, and may hence be taken as representing the military element
in the royal entourage.
The seated figure of Buddha seen in the upper panel illustrates what
has been said above about the close adherence to the models derived
from Gandhāra art in the delineation of divine figures which stand
outside Gautama’s life-story before his attainment of Buddhahood. This
representation of the Buddha in our banner reflects Indian hieratic
tradition in every detail. He is shown seated on a large scarlet
lotus, with the left hand raised in the attitude of ‘protection’
(_abhaya-mudrā_).[25] A crimson under-robe, with light blue lining,
covers legs and right shoulder, while a brown mantle lined with light
green is thrown over the bare left. The finely drawn face, with arched
black brows and level eyes, shows no trace of Chinese influence.
Throughout the drawing is firm and clear in the smallest details and
the workmanship very delicate.
The banner reproduced in the middle (Ch. 0071) has survived only in
badly broken fragments, but even thus claims attention for several
qualities. Though of the topmost scene little else remains but the
figure of the seated Prince Gautama, it can, on the strength of other
closely corresponding scenes, be safely recognized as representing
the farewell in the forest from his horse Kaṇṭhaka and its groom
Chandaka,[26] after the prince’s flight from his father’s palace. Lower
down we are shown in an excellently composed scene the pursuit of the
mounted messengers sent by his father Śuddhodana to search after him
in the forest. The group of five horsemen with heads turned towards
each other as if baffled as to the track to follow are plunging behind
a forested hill to the left. The drawing of men and horses is very
spirited and the movement of both vividly expressed.
In the bottom scene we may recognize with some probability a
representation of the First Sermon in the Deer Park of Benares.
Śākyamuni, in Buddha robes, with halo and vesica and gilded flesh,
is seated on a lotus upon a chased throne. Over him hangs a draped
canopy supported by a pair of red-flowering star-leaved trees just as
Paradise pictures show them. Of three monks standing behind the throne
the shaven heads are visible. In front kneel the audience—three men
with high topknots and gay party-coloured jackets and long under-robes.
With their faces raised towards the Enlightened One they seem to listen
intently to his teaching. Throughout the colouring is ornate and
carefully applied in illuminating style.