that they are based on personal reminiscence, nor have the
most ancient images which we possess any claim to represent his
features, for the earliest of them are based on Greek models and it was
not the custom to represent him by a figure until some centuries after
his death. I can imagine that the truest idea of his person is to be
obtained not from the abundant effigies which show him as a somewhat
sanctimonious ascetic, but from statues of him as a young man, such as
that found at Sarnath, which may possibly preserve not indeed the
physiognomy of Gotama but the general physique of a young Nepalese
prince, with powerful limbs and features and a determined mouth. For
there is truth at the bottom of the saying that Gotama was born to be
either a Buddha or a universal monarch: he would have made a good
general, if he had not become a monk.

We are perhaps on firmer ground when we find speakers in the
Pitakas[389] commenting on his calm and bright expression and his
unruffled courtesy in discussion. Of his eloquence it is hard to judge.
The Suttas may preserve his teaching and some of his words but they are
probably rearrangements made for recitation. Still it is impossible to
prove that he did not himself adopt this style, particularly when age
and iteration had made the use of certain formulae familiar to him. But
though these repetitions and subdivisions of arrangement are often
wearisome, there are not wanting traces of another manner, which suggest
a terse and racy preacher going straight to the point and driving home
his meaning with homely instances.

Humour often peeps through the Buddha's preaching. It pervades the
Jataka stories, and more than once he is said to have smiled when
remembering some previous birth. Some suttas, such as the tales of the
Great King of Glory, and of King Maha Vijita's sacrifice[390], are
simply Jatakas in another form--interesting stories full of edification
for those who can understand but not to be taken as a narrative of
facts. At other times he simply states the ultimate facts of a case and
leaves them in their droll incongruity. Thus when King Ajatasattu was
moved and illuminated by his teaching, he observed to his disciples that
His Majesty had all the makings of a saint in him, if only he had not
killed that excellent man his own father. Somewhat similar is his
judgment[391] on two naked ascetics, who imitated in all things the ways
of a dog and a cow respectively, in the hope