RELIGIOUS ART EAST AND WEST — ROWLAND 579 



of the cosmic forces. Although no such allusion to a covenant with the 

 deity is implied in the Buddhist painting, the rainbow still fulfils the 

 function of suggesting a being raised above the world by the heavenly 

 arc with a like implication of transcendence over the cosmos. 



In Buddhist iconography, the aureoles of rainbow hue are probably 

 to be taken as standing for the magic rays of varicolored light of 

 "precious substances" that the Buddhas emanate from their persons. 

 A suggestion of the possible symbolic significance of the nimbus that 

 forms the seat of our bodhisattva is contained in the opening of the 

 eleventh chapter of the Saddharma Pundarika: then there arose a 

 Stupa, consisting of seven precious substances, from the place of the 

 earth opposite the Lord, the assembly being in the middle, a Stupa five 

 hundred yojanas in height and proportionate in circmnference." H. 

 Kern explains this phenomenon as follows: "between the Lord and 

 (the Sun) is the stupa of seven ratnas" that is, the rainbow of seven 

 colors. He goes on to say that there are in Indian ideology either five 

 or seven colors (RV, pancarasmi and saptarasini) and that just as 

 there exists a parallelism between the five colors and five planets, there 

 should be a like parallelism between the ratnas, seven colors and the 

 seven grihas or stellar mansions. 



A more pertinent Christian interpretation of this ancient stellar 

 symbolism is expressly stated by Jolm (Rev. 1 : 20) : "As for the 

 mystery of the seven stars that thou seest in my right hand, and the 

 seven golden lamp-stands — the seven stars are the seven angels of the 

 seven churches, and the seven lamp-stands are the seven churches." 

 In other words, the ancient astronomical symbolism has been swept 

 away in favor of a symbolism understandable to the evangelist's 

 contemporaries. 



The bodhisattva at Bamiyan is dressed in the turban-crown and 

 jewels of a Royal Buddha: the position of this deity seated on the 

 rainbow suggests that he may be intended as the SamhTiogakdya in 

 the skies in relation to the eartlily teacher, NirmdnaJcdya of Buddha, 

 personified in the ruined statue below. Such an arrangement would 

 be analogous to the Paradise pictures of Tun-huang in which 

 Sakyamuni in the center preaches of the Buddha Amitabha who ap- 

 pears as a viny vision at the top of the sky ; it is Sakyamuni in his 

 transcendental aspect who introduces mortals to the happy land in 

 the West. This is the Buddhist equivalent of the Christ of the dictum 

 in the Fourth Gospel, '"'■Nemo venit ad patrem nisi per me." 



THE ARCHITECTURE OF PARADISE IN BUDDHIST AND CHRISTIAN ART 



A final and somewhat more complex example of the iconographical 

 relations between Christianity and Buddhism may be examined in 

 the artistic device known as the homme-arcade motif, the use of an 

 architectural setting — a colonnade — to frame divine personages for 



