It has long been known that the top row of reliefs on the chief wall of the first gallery represents the life-story of the historic Buddha, and it seems quite unnecessary to discuss this fact again. As far as we know, it was Wilsen who first attempted to trace this more or less consecutive story by means of the reliefs; his article, offered to the Batavian Society for publication, was never printed but put into the hands of Leemans who inserted it in his monograph. It was not until 1901 that a careful comparison of the scenes depicted on the monument with the text followed, took place; this was done by C. M. Pleyte in his: "Die BuddhaLegende in den Skulpturen des Tempels von Baro-Budur" I) This text is the Lalitavistara, which on being compared bit by bit with Wilsen's drawings, with a few unimportant exceptions, gives the key for the explanation of the reliefs. The sculptors of Barabudur have not had exactly the same version of the text before them that we now possess, but at any rate, a sutra that in all essentials agrees with it.

 

Pleyte's very useful work does not however relieve us from the task of examining the text and reliefs anew, especially because for both, we now have at our disposal much more reliable material than was available twenty-five years ago. Pleyte, as mentioned, was restricted to Wilsen's drawings. It is true that a visit to the monument enabled him to correct various inaccuracies in these drawings which were adjusted before reproduction in his books), but nevertheless the drawings though only incorrect in minor details, proved incomplete as foundation for a comparison with the text I). As for the text itself Pleyte had to manage with translations): even if he had wanted to consult the original Sanskrit text, the results would hardly have been satisfactory on account of Rajendralala Mitra's inadequate edition, at that time the only one in existence. We are much better off now-a-days, van Erp's excellent photographs can be used, and the maybe not perfect, but on the whole reliable edition of Lefmann is at our disposal.

 

Other differences too, will be found between the method of treatment followed here below, and that of Pleyte. As the title of his work indicates, he is concerned only with the 'Buddha-legende'as illustrated by the reliefs on this gallery, while on the contrary, my aim is chiefly to explain the reliefs themselves. For instance, if we find, quite rightly, in Pleyte a rather elaborate discussion of portions of the text that are not depicted on the reliefs, but which nevertheless are indispensable for the coherence of the story as a whole, in this archaeological description I consider elaboration justified only in what concerns the scenes that appear on the monument so that as regards everything not there depicted, a mere reference will be sufficient. Further I have carefully tried to make it possible for the reader to form his own opinion as to the correctness of the identifications. As it would be of little use to fill up this description with quotations from the Sanscrit, I think the best way to make it clear will be to translate, as literally as possible, those portions of the text that are represented on the relief, giving besides this portion of the text, a short description of the relief itself, that is, of the manner in which the sculptors have depicted the passage in question and then of course to indicate the divergence of detail between text and relief.

 

Still this way of treatment is not quite safe. It is always difficult enough to discern which particular details must be considered essential in a description, and though in some cases this difficulty can be avoided by an unabridged translation of the whole piece of text under discussion, on the other hand it is not advisable to do this if the scene represented on the relief consists of whole pages of the Lalitavistara. In such cases abridgment in inevitable and for these I have used my own judgment. Of course I have tried everywhere to be as careful as possible to maintain an objective point of view, but the reader must be warned that where it has not been possible to quote the whole Lalitavistara, here and there, in reliefs that include large portions of the text, some bits of useful data can still be found in the portions that have been left out in my quotation. In the few cases where the relief could not be explained from the text or in which it was not clear which of two similar passages was the one represented, the fact is carefully noted.