390 DESCRIPTION OF SOME INDIAN IDOLS 



In the Museum of the University of Edinburgh, amongst 

 several idols from Java, there is one of Buda, very much like 

 that represented at Fig. 4., and of the same kind of talcaceous 

 stone, so that they seem to be productions of the same school. 

 Others of these Java sculptures are of a dark-coloured porous 

 lava. 



In the British Museum there is a stone image of Buda 

 seated, with an attendant figure on each side ; on the back of 

 the stone is carved an ornamented pointed arch, of the form 

 called Gothic, with internal projecting cusps. 



Figures of Buda, in the same attitude as that before us, are 

 described and engraved in Syme's Account of the kingdom 

 of Ava, in the Museum Borgianum by Paulinus, in Kaempfer's 

 Japan, and other works. All these images represent Buda in 

 the state of perfect quiescence and impassibility, to the enjoy- 

 ment of which he passed after he quitted his abode upon earth ; 

 this his followers consider to be the future state of maturity 

 into which souls perfectly virtuous are elevated. 



In Java there is a low hill of considerable extent, covered 

 with a remarkable assemblage of large stone images of Buda, 

 placed in lines which go round the hill, and are parallel to 

 its base. A description of this monument is published in the 

 accounts of Java by Sir Stamford Raffles, and by Crawford. 

 Smaller figures of Buda, cast in bronze, are also met with in 

 Java. Pallas, in the course of his travels in the north of Asia, 

 collected some bronze figures of Buda, which are now in the 

 possession of Charles Hatchett, Esq. 



There are inscriptions in the Nagari letters and in the San- 

 scrit language, on the base of the upright figure of Suria, and 

 within th6 horse-shoe formed curve which is placed as a nim- 

 bus, behind the head of the figure of Buda ; there is also an 

 inscription scratched on the plinth of the seated figure of Su- 

 ria, composed of letters less carefully executed, the work of an 



inexperienced 



