The large but unfortunately poorly preserved silk painting (Ch.
xxii. 0023), of which this Plate reproduces remains of the left-side
portion, on the scale of one-third, presents exceptional iconographic
interest. It shows numerous Buddha and Bodhisattva images arranged
in separate compartments and drawn in an Indian style which is
unmistakably derived from the Graeco-Buddhist art of Gandhāra. As
first recognized by M. Petrucci from the few Chinese inscriptions
still legible in the cartouches,[29] the figures were intended to
reproduce sculptured images worshipped at various sacred sites of
India. Eleven of them appear in the portion of the painting as shown
by the Plate, and seven more are traceable partly above this portion
or in detached fragments.[30] In the case of six the characteristic
poses or attributes enable us at present to identify with certainty
the particular divinity which the original images were intended to
represent. For others definite clues have yet to be searched for.
The figure in the top corner on the left reproduces an image of Gautama
Bodhisattva, seated in the famous scene of Māra’s attack immediately
preceding the Illumination. This is shown by the characteristic
pose of the hand touching the rocky seat _bhūmisparśa-mudrā_ and by
the triple monster head forming a crown over the Bodhisattva’s head
and symbolizing the demon army of Māra. It was in that pose that
the miraculous image at the sacred site of Bōdh-Gayā, described at
length by the great Chinese pilgrim Hsüan-tsang and still traceable
in numberless replicas, presented Śākyamuni at the moment of
Enlightenment. The identification of our figure with this far-famed
image is confirmed by the Chinese inscription placed against it which
describes it as a statue in the kingdom of Magadha. In the figure now
seen in the top right-hand corner we meet again with a Bodhisattva
seated in the _bhūmisparśa-mudrā_. His robe is like that of a Buddha
and red. Two white crescents are shown within the nimbus, which, like
the vesica, is flame-edged. Here, too, a fortunate chance has preserved
the accompanying inscription from effacement. According to M. Petrucci
it mentions as the original a silver image preserved in the kingdom of
Kapiśa, which corresponds to the region of the present Kābul.[31]
Iconographic indications define four more of the images represented.
The figure in the middle of the topmost row shows the statue of a
Buddha standing with the right hand raised in the pose of ‘Protection’
and surrounded by an elliptical vesica which is filled with rows of
small Buddhas standing in the same pose and visible from the breast
upwards. The whole agrees in all details, down to the folds of the
drapery, with two colossal stucco relievo statues excavated by me
in 1901 on the southern corner walls of the great Rawak Vihāra of
Khotan.[32] Of these and similar representations on a much smaller
scale in Gandhāra relievos M. Foucher has proved that they are meant
to exhibit Śākyamuni in the act of performing the Great Miracle of
Śrāvastī.[33] In another standing figure, the one on the right of the
middle row, the introduction of a pair of gazelles or deer into the
ogee top of the vesica proves that an image representing Śākyamuni in
the Deer Park of Benares, the scene of the First Sermon, is intended.
The richly adorned standing figure of a Bodhisattva in the bottom row,
holding the characteristic emblems of the lotus and flask, is certainly
an Avalokiteśvara, and the presence by his side of various small
attendant figures may yet help to the exact identification of the image
intended.
Special iconographic interest attaches to the standing Buddha figure
in the right-hand bottom corner of the Plate. Its hieratic pose of
peculiar stiffness, the treatment of the drapery and what remains of
the background of speckled rocks, leave no doubt as to the identity
of the figure with the image of Śākyamuni on the Vulture Peak, which
is represented in striking similarity also by the fine painting of
Plate XIII previously discussed and by the embroidery picture of Plate
XXXIV. The vulture shown in the former makes it quite certain that the
background of all three paintings represents the famous rocky hill near
Rājagṛha or Rājgir in Bihār, where ancient tradition localized various
episodes of Śākyamuni’s later life. There is no inscription to tell us
where the Indian image which all three representations were intended to
reproduce was assumed to be. But the absolute identity of the pose, and
the extraordinarily close resemblance of all details in the treatment
of drapery, hair, dress, &c., prove all three to be replicas from the
same model. That this was a sculpture in the Graeco-Buddhist style is
obvious at a glance.
The rigid adherence in details to a common original model which is
proved in this particular case supports confidence in the general
fidelity with which the other figures, too, in our painting may be
assumed to reproduce the original images represented. A close parallel
is furnished by the miniatures in certain Nepalese manuscripts of
the eleventh century which illustrate various sacred images and
shrines of Buddhist India. M. Foucher has conclusively proved that
their painters, in all that concerns essential points, have always been
at pains to reproduce faithfully the stereotyped models furnished by
long-continued traditional imagery.[34]
In what form our painter had received the types he thus conventionally
reproduced is uncertain. But the clearly preserved Graeco-Buddhist
style shows that they were indirectly derived from Gandhāra, and
early transmission through Central Asia is obviously most probable.
The question may be hazarded whether the votive object aimed at in
the painting and its assumed prototype was not that of securing the
religious merit which might have attached to an actual pilgrimage to
those distant sacred sites. The drawing in mere outlines with little
or scarcely any colour, similar to the technique of certain Khotanese
mural paintings, and the perished state of whole portions of the silk
seem to point to the painting being of early date.