Buddhism were not Buddhist inventions, but the common property of all Indo-Aryan religion.
This interchange of symbolism is also seen in the various panels representing Māyā, the mother of the Buddha, seated or standing upon a lotus flower springing from a vase, while on either side above her an elephant bathes her from a vase held in its trunk (Pl. IV, b). No doubt, as M. Foucher says, this was meant by the sculptor to symbolise the Nativity of the Blessed One. But to many generations of artists before the Buddha's time, it had meant the miraculous birth witnessed every morning when Ushas rose from the cosmic ocean, and the mystic Brahmā lotus, the Creator's throne, unfolded its rosy petals. Ushas was the celestial maiden who opened the doors of the sky and was bathed by Indra's elephants, the rain-clouds. In Buddhist times the meaning of the myth is changed. Brahmā is dethroned and Ushas becomes the mother of the Blessed One under the name of Mahā Māyā—the Great Illusion, the cause of pain and sorrow, from which the Buddha showed the way of escape. In later Indian art she is Lakshmi, the bright goddess of the day, greeting her consort Vishnu, the Preserver, as he rises victorious from his conflict with the spirits of darkness, and bringing with her the nectar of immortality churned from the cosmic ocean (Pl. LXIII, a).[1]
The meaning of the hieroglyphic language in which Buddhist legends were told or doctrine expounded by the Sānchī sculptors has been made clear by M. Foucher's brilliant researches. The subjects of the long panels on the front and back of the three transoms of all the gateways are partly taken from the Indian story-teller's jungle book, the jātakas, partly from the events of the Buddha's last incarnation, and partly from the
- ↑ See below, pp. 168-72.
