ti4 THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE GUPTAS

Here, some 300 miles from Bombay, in a groat semi-
circular valley a little stream 'murmurs its perpetual plain-
song*—a fitting place to meditate. I lore sonic*. 2,000 years
ago a little group of monks made their first home. The
frescoes of Caves IX and X seem to belong to ubout the
first century A,D,, and here for perhaps a thousand years
their communal life went on, until Ajanta was a mighty
abbey, and the simple caves had developed into great
pillared cathedrals or chaityas and rows of monastic cells
or viharas. Their walls ^low after all these centuries of
use and of neglect, and of amateur copyists, with the rich
tones and the rhythmic processions of an art already highly
developed by the Guptan age* Here one may reconstruct
the splendour of these early monastic haunts of Buddhism,
and may still drink deep of their peace*

A delightful pilgrimage it is to visit the Buddha's
birthplace, to pass on to Patna, the old capital of the
Mauryas, to the venerable Bo-tree and the Deer Park, and
so to become attuned and prepared to understand the great
things of Ajanta, and of Sanchi on its lovely hill-top, a
few hours'journey away* This was a pilgrimage of great
Buddhist rulers and we find as early, at any rate, as Aspka,
that the symbols of these great scenes in the life of the
Buddha were the chosen motifs of the earliest art How
well they suited the genius of India* The elephant, always
her best beloved of animals, came to symbolize the dream
of the Buddha's mother, the great humped bull stood for
the month of May when Taurus is in the ascendant, and
the lion was the symbol of the Buddha's first preaching.
These were stamped on tokens for the faithful and they
reappear on the primitive sculptures of Barhut and the
highly wrought pillars of the Asokan age*

At Ajanta the symbolism remains, but it has largely
given place to realistic pictures of these events, and or the
Temptation and Death of the Buddha.

The artists believed, too, that for many aeons he had
been born in other forms, and these supplied them with
many a delightful theme, Here were grand opportunities