Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-04T19:28:26.912Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Art.XI.—Further Notes on Early Buddhist Symbolism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Extract

In an article on Early Buddist Symbolism, in Vol. XVIII. Part 3, of the Royal Asiatic Society's Journal (1886), I expressed my belief that the three objects of worship and ornament so commonly seen on Buddhist scultpures in India, the Svastika, triśūla, were not indigenous Indian emblems, but symbols of Western Asian origin—whether Semitic or Aryan matters little—adopted of old by the Hindus, and accepted, originally by Buddists, not as being in themselves Buddist symbols, but as being symbols of religious signification in general use among the people.

Type
Original Communications
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1888

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 420 note 1 Op. cit. p. 238.Google Scholar

page 420 note 2 Id. p. 239.Google Scholar

page 424 note 1 The three seals alluded to are engraved gems, and are to be found in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. They are figured in the Plate as Nos. 1319, 1320, and 1321. The lines are out into the seals. That they must be intended to be used as seals is shown by the Pahlavi legend in No. 1321, which is reversed on the stone, so as to be right for reading on wax.