The art and architecture of India - Buddhist, Hindu, Jain (Art Ebook)

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GOLDEN AGE AND END OF BUDDHIST ART
way at last into the earliest Buddhist sculpture
of China at Yiin Kang and Lung Men.
Of definitely Indian inspiration, too, are the
scanty fragments of early Nepalese painting. A
manuscript, also in the collection of the Boston
Museum [203], dated 1136, reveals a hieratic
linear style which, in the character of the figure
drawing and ornamental frame, is extremely
close to the surviving examples of Pala painting.
The manuscript is in the form of a palm leaf
prayer book enclosed in painted wooden covers
and contains invocations of the divinities in the
Tantric pantheon with illustrations of the
principal beings in the hierarchy. The miniature
illustrated is of Tara, offspring of the tears
Avalokitesvara shed for the miseries of the
world. It is completely characteristic of the
style of later Buddhist painting. Although the
figure preserves something of the sensuous
elegance of the Ajanta manner, the entire conception
has become flat and decorative, with the
figure of the divinity of no more importance
than the ornamental accessories. The conception
is entirely linear with an employment of
flat, jewel-like colours - a close imitation of the
surviving fragments of manuscripts from the
Pala school in Bengal. 8
The art of Tibet is in certain respects only
another example of the prolongation of the
religious art of Bengal under the Pala and Sena
Dynasties. The social and historical factors that
influenced Tibetan art may be summarized
briefly. Before the introduction ofBuddhism the
Tibetans were followers of Bonpo, an animistic
religion including many elements of sorcery
and sexual mysticism. Perhaps the most important
single historical happening in Tibet was
202. Bronze Padmapani from Nepal.
Boston, Museum of Fine Arts
the marriage in a.d. 630 of the first king to a
Nepalese princess and the alliance that the same
sovereign formed shortly afterwards with the
daughter of the Chinese Emperor T'ai Tsung.
These unions in a sense are a symbol of the
whole Tibetan civilization which forever afterwards
has been composed of elements drawn