Their heads are always shaved and they wear nothing on them, their dress is the same monk's garment worn by the Buddha, such as will be described in the next chapter. \Ve find one relief (Ia 110) with monks of a different sort where, according to the text, the Buddhais conversing with an Ajivaka (on the relief there are three of them). There is no reason to believe that there were such sort of people in Java; probably these were invented by the sculptor. The appearance of these three men is certainly rather strange; the head quite smooth in front, either shaved or the hair brushed back, has a bunch of hair on the top twisted into a bow in the style of ascetics with a long lock hanging down on the shouldder; the upper part of the body is bare except for a cloth that goes over the left shoulder and under the right arm, the rest of it hanging down; the lower part of the body is covered with a garment reaching to the ankles fastened with a girdle and clasp; they have bracelets round the upper arm and a sect-mark resembling an urea on their forehead. It looks very doubtful if this costume is anything real.

It would be useless to enumerate all the scenes where monks appear, their costume is always the same. Nor need we examine those where brahYnans are to be found, they are everywhere and mentioned in nearly every text. Not that their appearance is always the same; the members of this caste move in all kinds of surroundings and their dress is that of various classes of society, the needy brahman who accepts alms is not in the same costume as the elegant, important purohita, the Court chaplain. Brahmans always wear a beard and moustache; never any headdress but the hair always brushed smooth to the back and then twisted into a knot tied round with a more or less ornamental band. They are often seen with the wreath already- mentioned round the head, occasionally with a flower, either a real one or some floral ornament, in the front and at the sides, just the same place where the ornaments are put on a diadem; sometimes the hair in front is quite smooth and a flower put in the band that fastens the back hair. The rest of this dress in its simplest form consists of only a loincloth with a plain girdle, besides of course the caste-cord; as the brahman rises in the social scale he wears the usual necklaces, bracelets and rings round the arms and ankles etc. Let us take an example from the most typical of them. First the brahman who is a wanderer in the forest in the Cacijataka, IBa 23—25; he wears a loincloth and wreath, has a bundle on his shoulder, an umbrella in one hand, his staff in the other; nearly as plainly dressed, without the wreath and staff but carrying the umbrella and wearing bracelets, we see the man who is being received with high honour on IIB 13. The brahmans who are among the desa-folk have no other ornament than a pair of earrings and often carrv an umbrella. in such scenes ac O 16 54. 55 and 122.

There is a brahman plainly dressed at the beginning of series IIIB; he is seated on a cushion in conversation and elsewhere, for instance IIB 14, sitting on an undecorated chair. In this last scene he has a disciple with him without a beard but with the same style of hair, who carries the umbrella and a square tray with necessaries. There are two disciples on IIIB84, each with tray and umbrella, and the brahman sits on a curious stool with latticed sides, evidently of basket-work; this is the usual seat of these people. When money and clothing is being distributed, brahmans are always among the first to receive the dole, and it is thereby ~ noticeable that not only the poor and needy but evidently the well-to-do I present themselves, as can be seen by their style of dress. Of course we I know that this performance of benevolence is principally uDdertaken for the benefit of the donor i.e. to increase the number of his good deeds; in the Indian community, bestowing alms on a brahman is specially virtuous because he is a brahman, not because he is poor; in the same way, in the texts it is often the most eminent brahmans who get the most gifts. This custom being maintained as well on Barabu,dur is remarkable in so far that we should not expect to find it so in a specially Buddhist community where a brahman was of no more importance than any other person and on the contrary the law of charity to the poor and needy was in force. It looks to me as if the sculptors were here drawing from real life, for in Hindu-Javanese society with its strong Civaitic element and powerful syncretism, brahmans must have remained, people of importance even as regards the Buddhists. Such so to say un-Buddhist benevolence towards anything but poor brahmans must have been in accordance with the custom of the time. One distribution in particular must be noted, on O 26, where the brahmans have an unusual style of hair, not twisted into a knot, but coiled into loops.

Though as we have seen, persons in brahman dress are sometimes found in the wilderness and other persons (such as the already-mentioned Cuddabodhi) perform their "tape" in the dress of a bhiksu, still most of the ascetics or hermits have an easily recognised aspect. According to the texts, hair twisted up and a garment of fibre is the proper dress for the tapasvin, and the first characteristic certainly distinguishes these on Barabudur; the hair is twisted up on the top of the head into a loop with or without an unornamented band and then hangs loose.

A few of these hermits are somewhat less plainly dressed and wear a bracelet or a belt with ribbons. Those on O 37 look handsomer too and on IBa 3 4 we see very richly worked girdles; IBa 127 and II 86 are much the same. Still better-dressed and onlyshewing their ascetic nature in the looped style of hair, are the figures on IBa 82—85, 108—109, II 115, and O 75; they wear full-dress decorations and the looped up coiffure stands up above a correct diadem band. Compared with the first these are real fashionable ascetics and we wonder if they are some other kind of people altogether; but fortunately these tales on the first balustrade have been identified so that we know for certain these men are only ascetics. Thus we can judge how well these renouncers of all worldly things were able to accommodate themselves to circumstances and at least on the reliefs, as is here shown, to appear in the royal presence in court attire. But the eminent person who wears the looped up hair of an ascetic above a diadem, with unkempt locks at the side of it, IBa 152, we are not able to identify; he is dressed like a person of distinction and exhibitions of wrestling and dancing are being performed for his benefit.

In one place in the life history of Cakyamuni, Ia 70, we find female ascetics who are mentioned in the text as belonging to the brahman caste. Their hair and necklace is just the same as that of the men; the band over the left shoulder is sometimes as narrow as a string at the top, but under the right arm looks like the usual width of the supporting belt. These women also wear bracelets on the upper arm and the rest of their dress seems to be a sarong with a plain girdle. It is still unknown whether nunneries actually existed in Java such as those described in the Buddha story; though we know for certain that women also practised tapa and descriptions have been found of communities with male and female hermits like those frequently mentioned in Indian literature; therefore it must be left undecided if this relief represents what the sculptor was used to seeing in his own surroundings. Perhaps the girl who on Ib 34 brings a refreshing drink to a tired man with a wreath of flowers on her head, her hair tied with a band and hanging down at the back, as I remarked before '), may belong to a hermitage in the style of the idyllic Sagara whose praise is sung in the Nagarakrtagama.

Another class of persons, ascetics in a kind of way, but not to be identified as such, are the rsi's; they have a somewhat different aspect. The distinction is not very important because in the days of Barabudur there were no more living rsi's to be found either within or outside the community, so the sculptor either followed some imported tradition or was obliged to draw on his own invention for their appearance. Unfortunately the only scene where we are certain of having a rsi before our eyes, I a 31, where the great seer Asita is uttering his prophecy about the new-born Buddha, is not very distinct; the fsi whose nephew and companion is dressed as an ordinary hermit, seems only to differ from the ascetic type in his hairdressing, wearing instead of the looped-up style, a large round bunch of hair tied up on the top of his head, with hanging locks arranged on either side. Another very dilapidated figure on Ia 29 with a mass of unkempt hanging hair, is possibly also a fsi although he is wearing a handsomer kind of belt. In the series on the chief wall of the second gallery, those on 24 and 29 may be the same kind of seers; they are not quite the same but both resemble Asita in their style of hair, fastened into a bunch on the top of the head, not in loops, with locks hanging down at the side, while they have further the appearance of an ascetic. They both waer a broad headband without ornament, the latter (no. 39), actually a parivrajaka, is sitting on a brahman stool, he is living in the wilderness with a disciple and a waterjug; a jar with a lid, a shell on a pedestal and a trident are beside him.

Before leaving the subject of costume and hairdressing, I must call attention to a couple of noteworthy scenes. O 36 is very curious, we see curling locks of hair that hang from a chignon at the back of the head; horizontal stripes in the beard such as the brahmans wear on IV B 56, we find again with some very simple folk on O 35 and IV B 11. In contrast to this a couple of men on O 148 havetheirbeardsdividedinvertical lines as if it were a row of imperials. Finally let us notice the widow, identified as such by her single plait, on Ib 107, and then the negro or Papuan slave with his woolly head on IIB 33. He is proof positive of a custom known to us from the inscriptions, but being unique of his kind among all these reliefs, he shows that in the time of Barabudur the keeping of such slaves must have been very exceptional.