On the lake swim ducks, emblems of happiness, and oval lotus buds rise enveloping infant souls. Inscriptions beside the lotuses describe the rank taken by the soul in its new life. There is no altar before the Buddha, as in other Paradise scenes, no dancer or musicians, no celestial mansions. But a sacred vessel is borne on a lotus from the water before Amitābha and small Bodhisattvas kneel on either side. In front of them again, on a wooden platform, are grouped a two-headed Garuḍa, a phoenix, duck, crane, and peacock.
On the terrace which fills the whole foreground are seated Bodhisattvas four a side and well spaced. By the rail in front are two half-naked infants, no doubt newly born souls, one advancing slowly, the other dancing or running. Both hold flowers or berries and have, like the infants in the sky, their heads shaved except for a two-lobed tuft of hair over the forehead and one over each ear.[18] Between them and the Bodhisattvas are shown large flaming jewels on lotuses.
In the middle by the side of a slab, arched at the top and intended for a dedicatory inscription but left blank, are shown the small figures of the donors. On the right kneel two men with long belted coats and small lobed and tailed caps. Their attire bears close resemblance to the quasi-archaic dress in the Jātaka scenes as presented by our banners, and also to that in certain relievos of the early Buddhist cave shrines of Yün-kang and Lung-mên.[19] The costume and coiffure of the lady kneeling on the left agree exactly with those of the donatrix seen in the preceding Plate and the Vignette. As regards the chronological evidence which these details of attire afford, I may refer to my remarks on that Plate.[20]
With the picture reproduced in Plate [x] our painting shares also a number of other characteristic peculiarities, such as the use of ‘high lights’ for the modelling of the flesh; the unobtrusiveness of the haloes, which are transparent and often shown only in outlines; the flower patterns spotting the materials of the robes, &c. On the other hand, striking differences of composition, such as the total absence of the celestial mansions in the background and the ample spacing of the figures, make it clear that we have here preserved a specimen of a Sukhāvatī scheme developed independently of the orthodox type which prevails among our Ch‘ien-fo-tung paintings, whether on silk or mural, and which has become stereotyped in Japan.
There is a general absence of vivid colours in our picture. Dull green, with grey and black for the tiled terrace in front, prevails in the background, and dull green, light pink or red, and greenish grey in the colouring of figures and accessories. This quiet and coolness of colouring and a certain emptiness of the background give an effect of air and space which such crowded compositions as the Paradise seen in Plates [i], [ii] lack. The drawing is free and rapid but rather rough in detail.
PLATE XII
SCENES FROM GAUTAMA BUDDHA’S LIFE
XII
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.