Indian Antiquary Vol 09

SR No.: 032501
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 398
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 17 MB

Page 65

FEBRUARY, 1880.]
BOOK NOTICES.
53
mounds and remains existing there, and Col. Yule, who was present, expressed his belief that ancient India extended to Kåbul, and that the Greeks when in those regions considered themselves in India. Amongst the antiquities from Afghanistan exhibited by Mr. Simpson, there was a small head of white stone, beautifully carved, the features purely and exquisitely regular and classical, but the ear-lobes as much elongated as in any image of Buddha, and the head covered with close crisp curls, with the border so sharply defined as strongly to suggest the sort of cap or wig imitating curled hair spoken of at page 240 vol. V. of the Indian Antiquary. There were the long pierced ear-lobes and the close curly hair, but the beautiful youthful countenance had no suggestion of Buddha, and the appearance of the hair strongly suggested an artificial covering. London, December 1879.
M, J. W.
scalp and very close together; but the result would not be so satisfactory as the work would be laborious. By and bye we may suppose the width between the line was increased, and the small knobs left between being somewhat rounded, the effect would be improved, and it would soon be generally adopted. When the Mahầyana sect, in the sixth century, were gaining influence by their gorgeous ritual, this mode of representing the hair of Buddba was universal. It would be curious to compare any images that remain of earlier date or belonging to the Hinayana or puritan sect. This short hair is one of the traditional points of beauty in Buddha's person.
As to the ear lobee : a mistake is not unfrequently made here. A careful examination of many images convinces me that what appears to be a very long pendant lobe is not always really so, but whilst the lobe was largely prolonged, as it is by the modern Kånphatas, an elongated link was inserted in the lower extremity of it: this link is often supposed to be part of the elongated lobe.
But it must not be forgotten that it is part of the physiognomical lore of the Hindus, that a man with short ear-lobes is deficient in religiousness, and that long ones are the sure mark of a good and great man : hence Buddha's ears must have had unusally long pendant lobes.
The Jaina Tirthankaras are also represented with the same short hair and elongated ear lobes, as Buddba.
Ajanta Caves, 17th January 1880. EDITOR.
Legend says that Gautama Buddha on leaving his home cut off his luxuriant looks; and as no images of him were made till long after his decease, the characteristics of the Buddha sthaviras of the day would be the only guide that the fabricators of the first images would have to model them by. Then, though rupds or ornamental figures in caves and temples were probably largely in vogue before this, there were no examples among them with short cut hair; this would puzzle the first artists. They would pro- bably cut lipes crossing each other all over the
BOOK NOTICES. ALTINDISCHES LEREN: DIE CULTUR DER VEDISCHEN | clothing and finery, food and drink, amusements
ARIER NACH DEN SAMHITA DARGESTELLT VON HEINRICH ZIMMER; eine vom vierten Internationalen Orientalisten
and wars. The third book gives an account of Congress in Florenz gekrönte preisschrift. Berlin: Weid- their internal relations, domestic life, morals, mannsche Buchhandlung, 1879.1
arts and sciences, writing and arithmetic, astro, The Prize gained by the author of this essay nomy and cosmology, division of time, art of was ono liberally offered by the Italian Govern- healing, death and burial, life after death. ment, which thus afforded a fresh stimulus to In his preface (pp. v. ff.) the author remarks the efforts of the European scholars who are at that the materials which we possess for sketchpresent directing their attention to the study of ing the state of civilization among the different Indian antiquity.
races allied to us in speech, at the period when they I shall first of all enumerate the contents of emerged from the darkness of primeval antiquity, the work.
are very different in the case of each branch. It is divided into three books. The first de- As regards the forefathers of the Germans, scribes the land, its climate and formation, its there is the Germania of Tacitus, in which products, mineral, vegetable, and animal, its scarcely any side of life is left undescribed. This, inhabitants, Dasyus and Aryas, and their respec- combined with their own language and literature, tive tribes. The second book treats of the external especially those of the north, furnishes a picture circumstances of the Vedic people, their govern- of their prehistorical life, such as is obtained in ment and law, their cattle-rearing and agricul- the case of no other kindred European race. tural occupations, trades, commerce, &c., their The sources of our knowledge of the earliest . (Life in Ancient India; the Civilization of the Vedic may crowned by the fourth International Congress of Aryana described according to the SamhitA; prizo Orientalists in Florence. Berlin : Weidmann, 1879.)