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193
isolated rock in the middle of the Valley. Enormous figures
of Buddha (53 and 35 metres high) are carved out of the
sedimentary rock on the sides of the Bamian Gorge. Once
coated with cement and possibly coloured and gilded, these
images must have appealed strongly to the imagination of the
weary pilgrims, who prostrated themselves at their feet. "The
golden lines sparkle on every side", says Huien Tsang, who saw
them in the year 630 A.D., when he counted more than ten
monasteries and a thousand monks of the "Little Vehicle" in
the Valley of Bamian.
Of the images, the smaller, over 100 feet in height, is the
older. It seems that it was begun in the second century A.D.,
probably under the influence of patronage of Buddhism by
Kanishka the Great. The bigger one of about 160 feet is of
a later date, probably the fourth or fifth century A.D. The
niches of the Buddha contain marred but still beautiful frescoes,
dating from about the same periods. They are very interesting
from the archæological point of view, as they show an
important stage in the long process which brought the Buddhist
art of India to Afghanistan and blended it with Greek and
Sassanian elements before it ultimately found its way through
Sikiang to China and Japan. "It is funny how things travel—
an unknown Greek artist, here in Afghanistan, created the first
image of the Buddha by adapting to the needs of the new creed
the image of Apollo. India gave to this hybridization the stamp
of its deeper spirituality. Then it travelled back through
Afghanistan and Central Asia to inspire the Buddhist master-
pieces of China and Japan".
Aesthetically there is nothing really beautiful about these
two Buddhas. They are out of all proportion. Yet ugly and
Roughly two thirds of characters agree with a modern printed edition of the same text. Much of the disagreement is editorial, not misreading. Treat the transcription as a finding aid and read the page image before quoting. How this was measured.