All this carries us far indeed from the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path—the simple doctrine in which Śākyamuni taught the means of Salvation here on earth. Much of this later Buddhism was doubtless an accretion from other faiths with which it came in contact on its progress through Asia. Amitābha may be a borrowing from the worship of Mithras; and certain of the Bodhisattvas may have been originally deified heroes of lands into which Buddhism made its way. In Eastern Turkestān, Manichaeism, the religion founded by the Persian Mani in the third century a.d., found a home; and at Turfān—one of the oases which have been explored—Manichaeans, Buddhists, and Christians were living peaceably side by side.
For the study of religion, then, the art found in the various sites on the borders of the Taklamakān and Lop deserts is of extraordinary interest. But, as art, it is of a local and provincial type, and though often of considerable merit, it nowhere rises beyond a certain level.
III
But at Tun-huang we are within the frontiers of China proper; and Chinese art during the T‘ang period, seventh to tenth century a.d., was at its grandest height of power. The extraordinary interest of these paintings is that, though a great number of them are, as we might expect, obviously provincial productions (e.g. Pls. [xxiv] and [xxvi]), others belong to the central tradition of Chinese Buddhist painting; and as scarcely any such paintings of the T‘ang period are known to exist, the importance of this group, for the study of Chinese art, can hardly be overestimated.
How do we know that these paintings belong to that central tradition? We know it from the early Buddhist paintings of Japan, of which noble masterpieces (some perhaps actually Chinese) are preserved in the Japanese temples. Even if we did not know that the early Japanese painters founded their style entirely on the T‘ang masters, the Tun-huang pictures, sometimes so singularly close to the Japanese Buddhist art of the same period, would prove it.
Plate [iii] reproduces rather more than the left-hand half of a large painting, which itself seems to be only the upper portion of a still larger composition. The original offers extreme difficulties to photography; and though the reproduction is more successful than might have been anticipated, it is necessary to study the original to appreciate the delicacy of the drawing, especially of the faces of the Bodhisattvas. The serene grandeur of the design is enhanced by a pervasion of grace in the delineation of every form. Here, surely, is the hand of a master. Rivalling this in beauty is the large painting of which a portion is reproduced on Plate [i], and another portion on Plate [ii]. Here there is a similar delicate expressiveness of drawing, combined with a glowing animation of varied colour. The picture is full of exquisite detail. Note the life and charm, for instance, in the figure seated with her back to us in the window of the high pavilion in the upper right-hand portion, next the border (Pl. [i]). Here again is a master of individual temperament.
In both of these pictures the artist has been able to control his complex material and multitude of forms into a wonderful harmony, without any restlessness or confusion; and we are taken into an atmosphere of strange peace, which yet seems filled with buoyant motion and with floating strains of music.
None of the other pictures is, as art, quite on this level, the tendency being for the quality of the workmanship to be inadequate to the conception and design. The two grand fragments illustrated on Plates [iv] and [v]; the Avalokiteśvara (Pl. [xx]); the Vaiśravaṇa crossing the ocean (Pl. [xlv]) are perhaps nearest. And next would come such examples as the Avalokiteśvara in Glory (Pl. [xvii]) and other representations of the same Bodhisattva (Pls. [xviii], [xix], [xxi]), and some of the Paradise pictures, and banners; but as we gradually descend the scale, an insensitive execution contrasts more and more with the dignity and grandeur of the design. These were not great painters, but they belonged to a great school. In such a picture as the Two Forms of Avalokiteśvara (Pl. [xv]) we feel that if only the rather inanimate workmanship corresponded to the grandeur of the design, we should be in presence of a masterpiece. We have a hint at least of what majesty the T’ang masters must have been capable.
This group of paintings gives to the collection found at Tun-huang an artistic importance quite beyond that of any of the groups of works of art discovered by various expeditions in Turkestān; and it is worth while to examine them a little more closely.
The flooding wave of Indian religion and Indian art, after traversing a region of inferior cultures, meets in China for the first time an established art of original power and native genius. The Indian religion, in spite of vicissitudes and rebuffs, takes a firm hold on the Chinese. Buddhist paintings are demanded of the great masters. Of what character is the resulting art?