an offshoot from Patrick's question

[Jonathan Silk]

Patrick's question leads me to another, based on the content of the
story he cites:

are there any good studies of the use of 'portraits' in pre-Muslim
India? There is a Buddhist story (Udaya Jataka) in which a prince,
who does not want to marry, creates a golden image, and tells his
parents (who want him to marry and ascend the throne) that if they
find a woman as lovely as the image, he will marry her. (The kicker
is that they can't find anyone after sending the image all over
India, but they decide that his half-sister is even more lovely than
the image; he ends up marrying her, but they remain celibate etc etc.
etc.).

There should, I expect, be parallel uses of portraiture, but I'm
drawing a blank (maybe due to the heat--life in Southern California
can be rough ;-)

thanks, jonathan
--
Jonathan Silk
Department of East Asian Languages & Cultures
Center for Buddhist Studies
UCLA
290 Royce Hall
Box 951540
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1540
phone: (310)206-8235
fax:  (310)825-8808
silk at humnet.ucla.edu