Entering the first of the porches through which from four sides the successive galleries and terraces are reached, we come under the spell of the rapture symbolised by those vaulted staircases, leading upward from reason to faith, constructed, it seems, to match the “evident portals” of the perfect state: composure, kindness, modesty, self-knowledge. The Banaspati, terrifier of the evil spirits, shelters him who proceeds on the path they indicate in clemency and charity. As we pass on, confiding in his protection, the sculptured walls gleam softly, impregnated by the sun’s light embedded in the stones, and the germ of truth, treasured in the dagob, radiates down in luminous substantiation of the word, making the invisible visible by degrees. The air hangs heavy and warm in the galleries and throbs with the emotion excited by the lustrous reliefs which picture the life of the Buddha. A flush of indescribable splendour, clear exhalation of his virtue and holiness, lifts veil after veil from the bliss this initiation portends. The transparent atmosphere lends new significance to the gestures of the Dhyani Buddhas, seated on their lotus cushions as stars half quenched in golden mist, while we feel more than see the serene calmness of their features still wrapped in obscurity. Their contemplation is the beginning of the highest; their ecstasy pierces eternity, opens the regions of infinite intelligence, complete self-effacement, absolute nothingness. Too much absorbed in abstract cogitation to occupy themselves with matters of mundane interest, they leave the government of the created worlds to their spiritual sons, and Padmapani is the Mahasatva on whom our age depends. Out-topping human knowledge, they teach the meaning of the universe: the Buddha of the East dreaming his dreams as the sun rises, the Buddha of the South blessing the day, the Buddha of the West unfolding the secret of the all-spirit as the sun sets, the Buddha of the North pointing the way from darkness to light, the Buddha of the Zenith lifting his hands to turn the wheel of the law. The statues smile beatitude in happiness at losing the consciousness of existence when they will be worthy of the Nirvana, the solution of life in non-being, death which disclaims resurrection in any form. And the highest attainable blessing, the Paranirvana, the Nirvana Absolute, is signified in the image of the central dagob: however interpreted as solitary indweller of the shrine of shrines built over the remains of the flesh which embodied the word, the Tathagata, the self-subsisting, preceded and to be succeeded in fullness of time, it figures the immanence in bodily imperfection of the energy for good which sanctified Ayushmat Gautama, who modified his carnality by dominating his senses; who, when questioned by his first disciples, could declare that he was the expected teacher of lucid perception and replete comprehension, the discerning monitor, the destroyer of error, the spotless counsellor