The two pictures on paper reproduced in this Plate on the scale of
three-fourths claim interest by their subjects as well as by their
artistic merit. The one on the right (Ch. 00380) presents an aged
hermit with a tiger walking by his side. The hermit is represented with
a face extremely wrinkled, shaggy eyebrows, deeply sunken eyes and
cheeks. With his right hand he leans upon a rough staff, in his left he
carries a stick ending in a Vajra and fly-whisk. He wears sandals, long
spotted trousers, and two tunics, the shorter of which is spotted,
has long sleeves, and reaches below the waist. His head is covered by a
mushroom hat put above a skull-cap and tied under the chin by scarlet
bands. On his back is seen a bundle of manuscript rolls tied in a cover
and slung by a chain to a thorny branch. The attachment of this branch
to the hermit’s person is not clear; but in another picture of the same
subject a pole supporting the bundle is shown as carried on his right
shoulder.
On the further side of the old man there advances a tiger of
disproportionately small size. Both figures stand on a cloud of dark
red fire, and above them in the left top corner appears a small seated
Buddha, also on a cloud. The paint used for the cloud scrolls has
destroyed much of the paper, and of the figure too, where it was used
on it. The only other colours are grey and a light pink, distributed
over the clothing and figure, while the flesh is left uncoloured. The
drawing of the hermit’s figure is done with masterly skill, especially
in the features, to which impressive strength is imparted by a few
lines combining firmness with great freedom.
Very different in character is the picture on the left (Ch. 00150), one
of the very few non-Buddhistic paintings from the ‘Thousand Buddhas’.
Its subject has not been determined with certainty, but may possibly be
related to the story of how the Emperor Fu-hsi, the legendary founder
of the Chinese polity, first received the system of written characters
from a ‘horse-dragon’.[69]
Before the kneeling monster we see standing a bearded man, with smiling
face, who holds tablet and brush in his hands in the act of writing.
The back of his figure has been cut off when adapting the picture as a
mount for the two woodcuts under which it was discovered. He is clad
in a white-sleeved under-robe, long pink mantle, and a stiff black
head-dress with a square ornament stuck in front. A branching column of
flame rises from the tablet. Others stream from the dragon’s head and
body.
The dragon is a composite monster. The head is of a conventional
lion-like type, with voluminous upstanding mane, out of which rise
three sharp-pointed objects resembling mountain peaks. The body
suggests that of a scaly snake, with wings of curling feathers attached
and with the forelegs of a bull (?). In the foreground lies a string of
square-holed Chinese coins, an emblem the meaning of which at present
escapes us. The whole is drawn with much vigour and, in spite of the
fearsome appearance of the monster, with a distinct touch of humour.