434 COLOSSAL FIGURES OF BUDDHA. 



Some of the Indian temples in like manner furnish 

 magnificent specimens of these great rock carvings. In 

 the more modern Buddhist cave temples, for instance, 

 a very general adjunct is a more or less colossal 

 figure of Buddha, either in a sitting or recumbent 

 posture. The expression stamped upon the stony 

 lineaments of the faces of not a few of these figures 

 are often singularly beautiful, exhibiting artistic skill 

 of a very high order: one hand is generally raised, 

 as if the subject was in the act of addressing the 

 beholder. 



"The forefinger (says Sir R. Temple) solemnly points to 

 warn men to look from mortality to immortality: from the 

 seen things of time to the unseen things of eternity; and 

 the hand holding a pinch of dust indicates the insignificance 

 of all human greatness." : 



The historical records of the Bible also show that 

 this fondness for worshipping in high places existed 

 in very remote times, all over Bible lands: where the 

 earliest inhabitants of which history has furnished any 

 record were probably sun-worshippers, and so were 

 wont to assemble at such points of vantage to witness 

 the first appearance of the great luminary of the day, 

 as it rose upon the eastern horizon. In the Psalms, 

 for instance, we find this sentiment of the sacredness 

 of high places finely expressed in the words, 



" I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence 

 cometh my help." f 



Sacrificial altars are also constantly mentioned as hav- 

 ing been erected in such situations; thus Abraham, when 



* India in 1880, By Sir Richd. Temple, late governor of Bombay 

 and Lieut.-Governor of Bengal, 2nd Kdition, 1881, p. 28. 

 j Psalm cxxi I. 



