had had no
classical education to visit Rome or Athens in the true academic spirit.
Just as the key to those places lies in a knowledge of classical
history, mythology, and archaeology, so would the true key to Gyantse lie
in a knowledge of the history of Buddhism in general, and of the Tibetan
variations of Buddhism in particular. The main tenets of Buddhist
doctrine, as one may acquire them in a handbook or an occasional
magazine article, afford very little clue to Tibetan religious art.
Buddha himself one can understand, and one becomes quite to know and
admire the gently supercilious, ever-smiling expression that is
faithfully caught in every statue and picture of him which one sees. And
one can understand the motive in exemplifying the variations of human
fortune by pictures of the wheel of life which show types of all the
degrees of human happiness and unhappiness--instances of indescribable
tortures at one side of the wheel, lesser miseries adjoining it,
followed by similar gradations so arranged that as we go round the
circle we come at last to fair scenes of ideal human bliss. But the
application of the same kind of gradation to deities worshipped, and to
the representations of them given in art, is not so easily understood.
There is a certain highly symmetrical edifice standing in Gyantse
monastery. The centre of it consists of one huge Buddha reaching from
the ground to the height of, I should say, one hundred and fifty feet.
Round this are built tiers upon tiers of small shrines; each tier
contains one less shrine than the tier below it. The shrines are of
equal size, so that the general effect of the whole edifice is that of a
pyramid. You rise from tier to tier by a narrow hidden staircase. Each
shrine contains one idol. If you start at a certain point on any of the
tiers, and go round that tier, you will first enter the shrine of a
perfect Buddha, for whom you will feel at least some reverence. The next
shrine will contain an idol that impresses you less, and has about it
some taint of the world. The next is a thoroughly worldly idol, the next
is ugly, the next is obviously wicked, and the next a demon. The demons
grow in demoniacal qualities till suddenly you arrive again at the
Buddha from whom you started. The tiers above are all arranged on the
same principle, except that, the number of shrines decreasing by one in
each case, the gradation from Buddha to demon grows more abrupt as you
ascend.

Then a