Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal Part I History Literature &c. 1892

The painting at the left end of the verandah of Cave XVII the so-called Zodiac' of Indian Archteologists of which there is in the Society’s collection the fine photograph hero shown vide Plate VII is a fragment of a Buddhist Pictorial Cycle of Existence. [...] All agree in being costructed iu the form of a disc held in the teeth and clutches of a monster ; and displaying in compartments around the* margin of the disc in symbolic form the twelve recognized Causes of Re-birth—the 147icLria—and usually in the centre of the disc the three Original Sins. [...] In the centre of the disc are symbolized the three original sins and round the margin is the twelve-linked chain of Causes of Re-birth. [...] the everlasting existence in the Western Paradise of Devachen and of the celestial Buddhas and demoniacal proctectors of lamaism and the expressed absence of such expressions of the current modern beliefs favours the claim of the picture to cosiderable antiquity. [...] This curious perversion of the old Buddhist order of the heavens is typical of the more sordid devil-worship of The Heavens of the the majority of the Lamas.