Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c13.s5.55

c13.s5.55

The presence of the Bodhimaṇḍa or raised platform on which the Buddha was seated at Bodhgaya at the time of his enlightenment was accepted without question. It was easily transformed into a raised siṃhāsana borrowed from the Chakravartī iconography. From the outset the Buddha was believed to be a lion amongst the Śākyas, Śākyasiṃha, who was destined to sit on a lion-throne and, therefore, this association of a *siṃhāsana* with his image was taken to be appropriate. This formula of Buddha's image being seated on a lion-throne—supported on the heads of the four-lions—is not necessarily borrowed from anywhere else or even invented in the Kushāṇa period. As a matter of fact, this formula of lione-throne consisting of four lions and supporting the symbolic form of the Buddha is alealy present in the most explicit form in the Sarnath lion capital. In the later case, four lions seated back to back supported a Dharmachakra which symbolised the Dharmakāya of the Buddha or which is the same thing as Buddha being identified with his Dharma.