birth, growth, and development of Buddhist
faith. Queen Maya, jewelled and flower-crowned, with the miraculous
Babe on her knee, sits among her maidens, the earth breaking into
blossom at the advent of her star-born child. His education in the
mental and physical achievements imperative on Eastern royalty, when
the sword-pierced heart of the mother who typified the Virgin Queen of
Saints was translated to Nirvana's rest, is contrasted with the sudden
realisation of life's vanity when brought face to face with the world's
threefold burden of sorrow, sickness and death. The renunciation of
power, wealth and love follows, liberating the soul for the pilgrimage
along the mystic "path," pursued until "the dew-drop fell into the
shining sea" of Eternity. The manifold details of the Buddha's
traditional career are vividly pourtrayed on the hoary walls of
volcanic trachyte in outline clear and sharp, as though the sculptors
of the eighth century had just laid down burin and chisel. The indented
leaves of the Bo-Tree, beneath which the Sage meditates, are so
exquisitely carved that they almost seem to flutter in the breeze. The
scene of the deer-park wherein he judges beasts and men, carefully
weighing the tiniest birds in the balance of the sanctuary, suggests a
prophetic vision of the greater Saviour, Who declared that even the
humble sparrow is remembered by the Creator. Countless scriptural
truths throw their anticipatory shadows across the life of the Eastern
mystic who approached so closely to the Christian ideal of a later age,
for the Buddha's spiritual experiences became the inspiration of
unnumbered hearts, and exercised a purifying influence over every creed
of the philosophic East. The social life of ancient Java, comprising
public ceremonials, domestic occupations, architecture, agriculture,
navigation, drama and music, is memorialised by succeeding terraces of
the igneous rock which sufficed for the old-world sculptor as the
medium of his Art. An unknown King and Queen, the traditional founders
of Boro-Boedoer, appear in varied guise, throned and crowned, walking
in religious processions beneath State _pajongs_, kneeling before
Buddha with open caskets of treasure, and receiving the homage of the
people, accompanied by bearers of smoking censers and waving fans.
Armed warriors guard the jewelled thrones, and the popular attitude in
every scene of the royal progress evidences the semi-sacred character
awarded to Ind