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Vol. XXIII, No. 1
19 terrace has an extreme length of 131 yds and the topmost one a diameter of 30 yds. The five lower terraces are each enclosed on the inner side by a wall supporting a balustrade, so that four successive galleries are formed between the back of the balustrade of one terrace and the wall of the next higher one. The three uppermost terraces are encircled by a ring of stupas, each containing an image of Buddha within a perforated frame-work. From the ninth terrace a series of circular steps lead on to the crowning stupa. The balustrade in each terrace consists of a row of arched niches separated by sculptured pands. All the niches support a superstructure which resembles the terraced roof of a temple, with bell shaped stupas in the corners and the centre, and contain the image of a Dhyani Buddha within. There are no iess than 432 of them in the whole building and some of them may be regarded as the finest products of Indo-Javanese sculpture.
There is a staircase with a gateway in the middle of each side of the gallery leading to the next higher one. The doorway is crowned by a miniature temple-roof like the niches of the balustrade. The beautiful decorations of the doorways and the masterly plan in which they are set-commanding from a single point a fine view of all the doorways and staircases from the lowest to the highest-introduce an unspeakable charm and invest them with a high degree of importance in relation to the whole edifice.
The series of sculptured panels in the galleries form the most striking feature of Barabudur. On the whole there are eleven series of sculptured panels, the total number of which is about fifteen hundred.
It may be safely presumed that the sculptures in the different galleries follow prescribed texts and it is not possible to interpret them without the help of those texts. They depict the life of Buddha, his great deeds and his previous birth i. e the Jatak stories. The story of Sudhana Kumar, who made sixtyfour persons his Gurus, passed through a hundred austerities and ultimately obtained perfect knowledge from Manjushri also seen depicted in series of these sculptures.
It seems probable that there was fixed plan according to which certain episodes were executed. No small number of sculptors were employed. It is a matter of course that they could not all work together on one relief, but each have had his appointed place to begin. The short inscriptions that have remained on the buried base, furnish evidence to support this view for they are clear
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