However reasonable this idea of the hînayîstic king may have seemed to me, yet I could not maintain this when I was told by Mr. A. Foucher, the great knower of the ancient Indian Buddhism, that in Old _Gandhâra_ he often saw the Buddha, just as is the case here, sculptured in the _mudrâ_ of preaching, standing between the two Bodhisatthvas, _Avalokitésvara_ and _Manjusri_. This, among others, is to be seen at _Sârnâth_ in the northern environs of _Bénarès_ which passes for the very place where the _Buddha_ should have preached for the first time. This is ordinarily indicated by means of the tyakra between two gazelles, and consequently hewn at the foot of Buddha’s throne. Mr. _A. Foucher_ also taught me that my fellow-country-man, Dr. _J. Ph. Vogel_, leader of the archaeological service in British India, rightly declared the two demi-relievoes in the porch (volume 4th of the “_Bulletins de l’école française d’Extrême-Orient_”) to be the representations of _Hâritî_ and _Kuvera_, the goddess and the god of the _Yakshas_ with some of their children. In many a cloister in _Gandhâra_ he saw the Yakshî _Hâritî_ represented with one child at her breast, and that, after she herself, who is said to have been the former personification of small-pox (_variolae_), had been converted by the _Buddha_. He had taken away one of her 500 children, and remonstrated with her on the sorrow she gave the mothers of the children killed by her, in consequence of which she totally changed her character, became truly converted and afterwards honoured as a patroness of children. I am not going to expatiate about the artistic value of this produce of the ancient plastic arts in Old India. One should see them oneself and then judge whether the Indian sculptor knew how to chisel out living thoughts which are not less striking and beautiful than those of the Greeks in the age of _Pericles_, and much better hewn than those of the Egyptians in the time of the hieroglyphics, of _Memphis_ and _Thebae_, of _Carnak_ and _Philae_[12]. But there are more things to be seen in the sanctuarium of tyanḍi Mĕndut. The space within the four heavy walls is not a square or rectangular one, but rather a trapezoid with parallel front- and back walls. Its side-walls somewhat join each other from front to back. I don’t know any other example of deviation from the rectangular form, and therefore try to find its meaning in the sculptor’s effort to increase the impression the large images make upon the visitor, by slightly supporting its perspective. [Illustration: Tyanḍi Mĕndut. Imagery in front of the entrance of the ruin. Kuwera, the god of riches and of the _Yakshas_, with some of his children.]