Śākyamuni stands facing the spectator with his feet on a lotus. His right arm hangs stiffly by his side with the fingers stretched downwards and the palm turned to the side. The arm wrapped in the folds of the glowing red mantle holds an ‘ear’ of it gathered at the breast. The mantle closely draped about the body falls in a point to below the knees and allows a light green under-robe to be seen thence to the ankles. The yellow lining of the mantle shows in a rippling edge along the outline of the left arm and down the body, a device which is familiar already to Gandhāra sculpture. The right shoulder and arm are left bare and are painted a deep golden yellow. The Buddha’s face is shown in light buff and, curiously enough, the right forearm as well. This distinction is emphasized in the case of the latter by the work being executed in thin rows of chain-stitch and is obviously intentional. But its iconographic significance is for the present uncertain.[73] Behind the head, with its narrow, slightly slanting eyes and hair of very dark indigo, appears a nimbus in plain rings of variegated colours. A narrow halo shaped like a lotus petal, similarly coloured, surrounds the whole figure, and behind this again appears a border of rocks emblematic of the Vulture Peak.

By the side of the Buddha stand pairs of disciples and Bodhisattvas, both on lotuses. The latter, who may represent Avalokiteśvara and Mahāsthāma, turn three-fourths towards him; the one on the left with hands in adoration, the other with both arms slightly advanced from the elbows and the right hand held as if in the vara-mudrā. The dress and adornments of these figures conform to those of Bodhisattvas of the ‘Indian’ type as already noticed, but are drawn more trimly. A certain stiffness and simplicity in their design suggest close affinity to Indian models. But in the Bodhisattvas’ faces we notice the influence of Chinese style, as also in the ornamental borders of their dress.

Of the disciples’ figures in the background enough remains to show that their heads were shaven and haloed and their dress that of monks, with mantles barred with cross-stripes. The face of the one on the Buddha’s left was lined and frowning, which suggests identity with Kāśyapa; the other with face plump and benign may represent Śāriputra. By the side of the small and somewhat stiff canopy above Śākyamuni’s head are seen two graceful Apsaras floating down with outspread arms, borne up by fine cloud scrolls and their billowing stoles. Their resemblance to the Apsaras of Plates [x] and [xi] is striking.

Below the Buddha’s feet there kneels on either side a small lion of conventional type with one forepaw lifted. Below them again is a panel for a dedication, which, however, has never been worked in. Of the narrow cartouches placed by each line of donors, only the two foremost on the men’s side bear Chinese characters, now mostly illegible.

The groups of donors on either side of the panel, disposed in strict symmetry, present special interest by their life-like treatment and by their costumes. This is easily seen from Plate [xxxv], which reproduces the group of the ladies on the more adequate scale of two-fifths. Arrayed in three lines and kneeling on mats, they all wear a very plain type of dress. It comprises high-waisted skirts of brown, green, or blue, bodices with long close-fitting sleeves, and small shawl-like stoles. They have no jewels, and their hair is done in a small topknot without any ornaments. By the side of the hindmost two ladies kneels a child, and at the back stands a young female attendant in a long plain gown. On the men’s side there kneels foremost a shaven monk in a brown cloak, behind him three men dressed in long belted coats of light greenish-blue and wearing peaked and tailed caps of dark brown or blue. A young attendant with bare head holding a staff stands at the back.

A glance at the lay donors is enough to prove that the dress in each case is in closest agreement with that worn by the donors in the two paintings of Amitābha’s Paradise in Plates [x] and [xi].[74] For these a series of concordant indications postulates a date distinctly older than that of our earliest dated picture of a.d. 864.[75] A variety of considerations lead me to believe that the date of those two paintings and of our hanging as well cannot be later than the eighth century, but may possibly be even somewhat earlier.[76]

In accessory details, too, a very close contact reveals itself between the embroidery picture and the paintings shown in Plates [x] and [xi], proving that they belong to the same period and were probably produced under the influence of the same pictorial school. In all three we see the identical pair of graceful Apsaras figures, in an attitude not found elsewhere among our paintings. In the dress of the Bodhisattvas we may note as a common peculiarity the same brocade-like decoration of the edges of the lower robes. Peculiar, too, to the three pictures are the plain sage-green lotus seed-beds underfoot or as seats of the divine figures. Whatever the exact date of production may be, there seems little reason to doubt that the hanging must rank with the oldest of our Ch‘ien-fo-tung paintings. The needlework is of the finest, as Plate [xxxv] shows with particular clearness, and to this the picture owes the striking freshness of its colour effects and the excellent preservation of all parts that remain.

PLATE XXXVI
BHAIṢAJYAGURU’S PARADISE

XXXVI