Kizil Cave 8: Child Playing Drums

CHINA, Xinjiang, Aksu

This painting is located on the left side of the barrel-vaulted ceiling in the main chamber. According to the Sutra on the Collection of the Six Perfections, the Buddha was Sakra and Maitreya was a woman in a past life. Sakra disguised himself as a merchant to educate her. The merchant saw a child playing a hand drum and laughed. The woman asked why he laughed, and the merchant replied with the story of the child’s past life. The child had been a cow in his past life, and was reborn as the son of its owner. The owner made a hand drum out of the cow’s hide and the child, now playing the drum, did not know that it was made his own skin from his past life, hence the merchant’s laughter.
In this diamond-shaped painting, a Buddha is seated in full lotus position on a rectangular throne. The Buddha wears a monastic robe with the right shoulder bare and raises the right arm in vitarka (teaching) mudra. The figure has a circular nimbus and an aureole, and at the top of the nimbus is a decorative pattern. The Buddha turns the head slightly towards a child on the left, who kneels on one leg before the Buddha. The child holds a long handle in an upraised left hand, and a hand drum in his lap.