The American Egypt: A Record of Travel in Yucatan

by Channing Arnold; Frederick J. Tabor Frost

THE NUNNERY, UXMAL.

But if there is little similarity between the minuter architectural details of the Mayan and Buddhist buildings, we believe that, carefully studied, the former, and particularly, as we should have expected, those at Copan and Quirigua, exhibit distinct survivals of Buddhist influence. Mr. Maudslay, in his superb series of photographs of stelae (Biologia Centrali-Americana), shows clearly in the hands of nearly every figure what he calls a "manikin staff"—a short stick surmounted by a human figure issuing from feathers or leaves. He cannot explain it, but we believe that it may be nothing less than a much corrupted survival of the sacred lotus held by Buddhist images. In photographs of carvings at Bharahat and also at Boro Budor, the Buddhas and their attendants appear to hold just such short staves, really the rubbery stem, surmounted by the lotus-flower, out of which seems to issue in some instances a kind of face. There appear, too, in the grasp of many figures on the friezes at Bharahat short sticks surmounted by manikins seated on bannerets. The "manikin staves" at Copan may be a blended memory of these two Buddhistic symbols.

Again, Mr. Maudslay noticed a detail of Mayan decoration which has escaped other students. He points out that at Palenque and elsewhere is represented a plant which he calls a water plant because fish are seen feeding on the flowers. "The leaves and flower-buds," he writes, "are very clearly drawn, and have somewhat the appearance of those of a water lily." He is probably right: it is a water lily—the Buddhist lotus—which figures, often with fish swimming round, in almost every carving at Boro Budor and the ruined Buddhist cities. The drawing he gives of the Palenque carving is so exact a copy of the Buddhist lotus as to be quite amazing.

The figures on the stelae at Copan and Quirigua, in many instances have across their breasts what looks like a broad band. We believe this to be another Buddhist survival—viz. the ola or palm-leaf book which Buddha is nearly always shown holding, and which appears in the famous rock statue of King Parakrama in the ruins of Polonnaruwa (see H. W. Cave, Ruined Cities of Ceylon), exactly as portrayed in Guatemala.

The headdresses of the stelae statues are most reminiscent of the triple tiara of Buddhist images. The large square or round ear-ornaments at Quirigua are precisely like those in the sculptures of Boro Budor and in the island of Madura, a report on the ruins of which latter was published in 1904 by the Dutch Government (Archaeologisch Onderzoek op Java en Madura). A plate in the latter work represents stelae found in Madura in feature and decoration so amazingly like those of Quirigua that one might be forgiven for thinking one was looking at one of Mr. Maudslay's superb photographs. The latter noted at Copan curious forehead marks which suggest to us the sacred Buddha markings. On the north face of the gigantic monolithic turtle at Quirigua is a cross-legged figure which in Mr. Maudslay's plate exhibits in the fullest manner many Buddhist survivals.

At Palenque, again, there are the very peculiar Temples of the Cross and the Foliated Cross, which appear to have no parallels in other Mayan ruins. We suggest that here too is a Buddhist survival, namely that the "Crosses" (it is more obvious in the foliated one) are crude representations of the Sacred Tree of Buddhism, the "Tree of Wisdom," traditionally a pippul-tree, beneath which Gotama attained Buddha-hood, and which occurs again and again on the Boro Budor friezes and on all the ancient Buddhist carvings, and around which figures are grouped in adoration as are those in the Palenque reliefs. As the Palenque tablets suggest that the "Cross" is the direct object of worship, it may be worth while here to mention that in the oldest Buddhist sculptures Buddha himself is never represented directly, but always under a symbol; either the sacred footprints—Buddha-pats—or the tree beneath which his meditations led him to divine knowledge.

But the faces of the statues will take us a step further: for they seem to be representations of those human types peculiar to Cambodia, Siam, and the Malay Peninsula, as will be seen from the illustrations. They have the elongated, somewhat oblique eye of those peoples; they have not the American, but the Siamese nose. They are beardless (for this reason some have declared them to be women), and they wear an Oriental headdress such as is found in none of the admittedly Mayan ruins, and which we believe we have identified as the ancient Indian turban shown clearly in the carvings at Bharahat.

But we must revert directly to the all-important evidences afforded by a study of Copan. Here, following up our argument that the peculiar characteristics of the invading builders would tend to weaken as they mixed more with the Indians, or as their lessons, perhaps after their deaths, were adapted to purely native ideas and designs, we find an illustration in point in Piedras Negras, a ruined city on the Usumacinta discovered by Herr Teobert Maler. Here, some way from their first settlement, the distinctly Oriental influence is on the wane, but it is still strong. A carving there unearthed by Herr Maler is so reminiscent of Buddhist monuments that it must appeal to the most undiscerning. The figure of the seated god is, in truth, the best the sculptor could do from memory.