104 FOOTFALLS OF INDIAN HISTORY
icon or symbol of the highest sanctity. It was because this was happening that the stupa itself had been enabled to undergo the changes necessary to convert it into the Shiva. It is now, then, that we may place the evolution of the image of the First Sermon at Benares. This was not so fixed as is commonly supposed. In the caves of the second period at Ajanta — Seven, Eleven, Fifteen, Sixteen, and Seventeen — we may judge for ourselves of the rigour or latitude of the convention. No two of these are exactly alike. Seven is one of the earliest, because the ambulatory which was essential to the chaitya-dagoba is here found, at immense cost of labour, to have been provided for the image in the shrine also, showing that the excavators were as yet inexperienced in the different uses of the two. The shrine, or gandalcuti, was not yet stereotyped into a mere hall of perfumes, or incense, as Hiouen Tsang calls it. 'this processional use of the shrine explains the elaborate carving of the side-walls here, to be described later. In the image, which is still more or less intact at Sarnath itself, we find an effeminacy of treatment which is very startling. The predella too is unexpected, holding worshipping figures turning the wheel of the law, instead of the peaceful animals lying quietly side by side in that wondrous eventide. Griinwedel points out that the use of the halo speaks of the existence of an old school of art in the country. So also do the flying devas and the wheel and the symbolistic animals. The artist was speak-
