Eastern Indian School of Mediaeval Sculpture c7.263.2

c7.263.2

Coming to the Bengal school we find that the presence of Indra with the umbrella and of Brahmā with the fly-whisk represents the descent from the heaven. The steps are absent in the majority of cases. In the stelæ of the second class, which represent the eight principal incidents of the Master's life, this event is very rarely represented. It is to be found in one case only, in the fragment of the backslab from Ghasikundi, No. 4575-76⁸ of the Indian Museum collection. In this particular case, the incident is represented in the second horizontal row. Here Buddha is standing on a lotus in the centre. Indra stands on his proper right on a smaller lotus, holding an umbrella over the head of the Master and Brahmā to his left with a fly-whisk in one of his four hands, while in front of the large lotus is to be found the kneeling figure of the nun Utpalavarṇā. This incident is to be found in one of the three stelæ discovered at Nālandā, on the upper horizontal row, to the proper right, where only one attendant figure is to be seen holding an umbrella over the head of the Master. Though the incident of Saṅkāśya is not to be found in stelæ of the second class usually, the artists of that school represented this incident very profusely in separate images. It has been stated above that the artists of the Benares school represented the steps, which are said to have stretched from the heaven to the earth at the time of the Master's descent, in some cases only.