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

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Java 455
men. In these reliefs
the Buddha appears appropriately
as an abstractly conceived form in
marked contrast to the persisting realism of the
setting and figures that surround him. 3
The Maitreya story of the third gallery consists
of a seemingly endless repetition of a scene
representing the disciple Sudhana interviewing
one or another of his teachers human and divine
[388]. Sometimes the variations consist only of
slight changes in setting and in the attributes of
the personage involved. The regular stock set is
a rich canopy, under which the teacher is seated
with the pilgrim Sudhana kneeling in front of
him. Here we find a curiously static, empty
style in comparison with the rich reliefs of the
Jatakas and the Buddha story which are so filled
with movement and genre detail. In comparison
with the crowded more Indian panels of the
lower galleries, these reliefs are even more
'classic' and depopulated.
Finally, with the reliefs given over to the
Samantabhadra text on the fourth level, the
compositions assume a yet more abstract and
hieratic quality : rigid groups of numerous Buddhas
around a central figure - a composition
seemingly endlessly repeated, arranged with
the formality of a mandala [389]. Certainly the
very nature of the texts to be illustrated conditioned
the character of these reliefs; that is,
their generally more metaphysical nature did
not lend itself to anything approaching the
liveliness of narrative treatment which we see
388. Barabudur, third gallery,
illustration from the Sudhana legend, Maitreya text