On the five encircling walls of the Båråbudur we see no less than 432 niches provided with Buddha-images we are going to speak about afterwards[25]. We now turn to the left in order to begin our walk along the sculptures of the _upper_ series of the _back_-wall. This wall is the only one that has remained almost wholly preserved, showing us a comparatively well explained row of following events which give us an idea about the life of the Buddha _Siddhârta Gautama_, the _Shâkyamuni_, from beginning to end[26]. Out of these 120 sculptures we can only give a superficial description of a few of them that have been explained best. Those of the lower series and of the _two_ rows on the front wall of this gallery, and the _few_ rows of the two walls of the three following galleries we shall pass in silence. Not yet _all_ of them have been explained, and many a sculpture has been so badly damaged that it doesn’t seem possible to explain them. Other ones are lost at all. That which remained well preserved generally represents a worship of the Buddha, of dagobs or tyaityas, of _bodhi_-trees, or perhaps of different relics. Sometimes they also show us a distribution of viands, or other presents, a preaching, a fable about animals or a scene from the former lives of the Buddha as man or beast, or certain _Bodhisattvas_ or divine predecessors of the Buddha, the Redeemer of this world[27]. Some sculptures are likely to be mere symbols. Formerly their number amounted to more than 2000[28]. Let us begin our walk to the left of the eastern staircase in order to return to our starting-point following the course of _the sun of the northern hemisphere_[29], going through the South, West and North. This order of succession regulated after this sun, we always find back on these and other Hindu ruins; more or less a witness of the _northern_ origin of Javanese Buddhism[30]. The Siamese also followed this direction, and maintained that a walk to the _right_ of the Buddha or the dagob, consequently with our left side turned to it, would show our ignorance or want of respect. For convenience’ sake, and in order to assist the visitor in finding the few sculptures, we shall always count them from the preceding staircase or from the first till the ninth wall-angle, and begin with the eastern staircase. The first scenes relate that which preceded Buddha’s life. The fourth sculpture of the series (No. 7 of Wilsen’s pictures in Dr. Leemans’ work), or 1 after the _first_ angle, may be, according to Foucher, some of the many _Pratyeka-Buddhas_[31] in the park of gazelles near Bénarès, and, when a deity informs them the birth on earth of a consummate _Buddha_, one of them rises from his lotus-throne in order to be burned by his own shine and ascetic diligence when seven elbows higher in the air. The former explanation given by Leemans and myself, according to Wilsen’s, was inaccurate.