Upon the task of illustrating _The Gospel of Buddha_, I have spent three
years, the first of which was entirely devoted to preparation. By the
kind assistance of Dr. Hans Schnorr von Carolsfeld, Director of the
Royal Court and State Library at Munich, I was enabled to make very
extensive use of the treasures of this institution, and I am under great
obligations to him for the courtesies extended to me. Above all I
endeavored to obtain a solid foundation for my work by acquiring a clear
conception of the personality of the Buddha from religious, historical
and artistic standpoints and by familiarizing myself with all the
Buddhist dogmas, symbols and religious observances.
Detailed studies of Indian costume, armor, decoration, architecture and
the arrangement of dwellings and gardens, as well as the fauna and flora
of the country, were likewise indispensable. Not only modern documents,
explorers' reports and photographs of ancient ruins provided me with
available material, but also some old Dutch works of the seventeenth
century.
The two main sources of our knowledge of ancient Buddhist art will
always remain the monuments of Gandhāra, and the cave dwellings of
Buddhist monks in Ajantā and other places. The former bear witness to
the extraordinary influence of Greek art on Buddhism; and the latter are
rich in wonderful fresco paintings of the classical period of Buddhist
art. A description of all the caves as well as a selection of the best
mural paintings in colored pictures are to be found in Griffith's
elegant work _The Paintings in the Buddhist Cave Temples of Ajanta_[1]
and some reproductions from it have been made further accessible in Dr.
Carus's _Portfolio of Buddhist Art_.[2] The two great expositions in
Munich, "Japan and Eastern Asia in Art" and "Expositions of the
Masterpieces of Mohammedan Art," 1910, were very instructive to me from
the point of view of art history, containing invaluable material
conveniently arranged from the great museums, royal treasures and
private collections from London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, St. Petersburg,
Moscow, and Cairo. In the former the great wave of the marvelous
Buddhist faith which had been flowing towards China for two millenniums
and which had brought new life from China to Japan was evidenced in many
rare pieces. Yet almost more fruitful for my purpose was the exposition
of Mohammedan art. It displayed wonderful Persian and Indian book-making
and lacquer work, tapestries, ceramics, fabrics, armor and metal work.
To be sure these were exclusively of Mohammedan manufacture, but many
large museums and institutions (native and foreign), collectors and
explorers had sent also chests of Buddhist works, which, not falling
within its compass, had been excluded from the exhibition, but were
placed at my disposal in the so-called Library Department reserved for
students.
Indian art has been greatly neglected by archeologists and connoisseurs
at the expense of the so-called classic style, and explorers seem to be
more interested in the geographical and political conditions of the
country, or even look down with contempt and lack of understanding on
the early artistic monuments of India, although they have enriched our
European middle ages. Thus there are great gaps in the history of Indian
art which I was obliged to fill up for myself, and certainly a very
different kind of study was needed to illustrate a Gospel of Buddha than
for a pictorial construction of the life of a Plato or a Jesus.
Fräulein Emily von Kerckhoff, an artistic and highly cultured lady of
Laren in Northern Holland, sailed on November 9, 1909, to join her
family in Java where she remained for some time. Her journey occurring
just at this time was of great help to me, for she complied with all my
wishes in the most accommodating manner and filled up many gaps in my
knowledge of India.
In Colombo she became acquainted with the Dias Bandaranaike and other
refined Singhalese families, who were very friendly in answering my
questions. Further she met Sister Sudham Machari of Upasikarama,
Peradeniya Road, Kandy, a prominent Singhalese nun, who with the
assistance of Lady Blake, the wife of a former governor, had founded the
first modern Buddhist nunnery in Ceylon where she now lives as lady
superior. She is well posted on Buddhism, for she has studied Pāli,
Sanskrit, and Burmese for nine years in Burma, and has received
ordination. Through her, Fräulein von Kerckhoff had an opportunity to
visit the temple in Kandy where the strange relic of the "Sacred Tooth
of Buddha" is preserved, and on this occasion was able to obtain some
leaves from the sacred Bodhi tree which I wished to possess. She also
became acquainted in Kandy with Dr. Kobekaduwe Tikiri Banda, a
Singhalese physician who belonged to a Buddhist family and is the son of
a Kandian chief. He had studied in England for a long time and possesses
a remarkable knowledge of the country and people of India and Ceylon, by
which I thus had an opportunity to profit.
Fräulein von Kerckhoff gathered further material for my purposes in
Gampola, a place in the mountains about an hour's ride from Kandy, on
the occasion of a visit to the family of the district judge, Mr. De
Livera, and by the acquaintance with Mr. J.B. Yatawara Rata-Mahatmaya,
Governor of the District and a zealous Buddhist, who has translated into
English part of the Jātakas (stories of the various rebirths of Buddha)
in collaboration with the late Prof. Max Müller, of Oxford.
Later, in December, 1910, she sent me leaves from the Bodhi tree at
Anuradhapura, the sacred city of the Buddhists, where there are ruins of
ancient palaces and temples, and where stands that Bodhi tree which
Mahinda, the first Buddhist apostle in Ceylon, is said to have planted
from a branch of the sacred Bodhi tree in Buddhagaya under which Buddha
attained enlightenment.
With regard to customs, habits and usages at princely courts I received
information, though to be sure referring mainly to Java, through Prince
Paku Alam, his uncle Prince Noto, his sisters and other relatives, all
of whom talked Dutch fluently with Fräulein von Kerckhoff. She was also
kind enough to send me all the interesting photographs she could find of
famous Indian temples and ruins, views of native life, types and
landscapes, pictures of the newly excavated temple ruins of Sarnath,
where Buddha first preached after attaining enlightenment, and
particularly also of the splendid temple of Boro-Budur. (She also went
to Japan in search of traces of Buddhism for me).
By means of the Hagenbeck Indian ethnological exposition (Oct. 1911, in
Munich) I was able to study types of the different Indian races and
castes from nature, and this in addition to a personal observation of
the features of Indians in the harbors of Genoa and Venice enabled me to
draw my figures according to nature from genuine Indian models.
However, all these studies slightly influenced the externalities only of
the whole series of pictures, for the knowledge obtained by detailed
study had been covered to a remarkable extent at the beginning when I
made my first sketches on the first inspiration. Still they have proved
of great value to me since they gave me the assurance that historical
fidelity has been preserved in my work.
Munich, Bavaria.