Eastern Indian School of Mediaeval Sculpture c7.61

c7.61

The more elaborate stelæ of the first class contain representations of several other incidents of the Master's life, which are not usually to be met with in the older schools of Indian sculpture, after the school of Gāndhāra. On the stelæ from Bihar and Sibbati we find the mahābhinishkramaṇa or the departure of the Bodhisattva from his home, to the left of the scene representing the first meditation. It is said that the Bodhisattva left his home, on his horse Kaṇṭhaka, attended by his groom Chhandaka, at night; when the people of the city of Kapilavastu were asleep. The Gāndhāra and Mathurā schools supply many varieties of the representation of this incident. Thus, we find some scenes representing the Bodhisattva meditating on the great renunciation while seated by the side of his sleeping wife, while all the attendant females are sleeping on all sides.⁴ There is a fine series of basreliefs representing different incidents of the great renunciation, belonging to the Gāndhāra school, in the Lahore Museum. In one of them we find the Bodhisattva on horse-back, the feet of the animal being held by earth-spirits, so that they may not produce any sound.¹ Further on we find the Bodhisattva on horse-back emerging from the city gate.² In the Mathurā school representations of this incident are to be found on a fine pillar presented by Sir Alexander Cunningham to the Indian Museum after his retirement and on another specimen.³ The third specimen is in the Mathurā Museum.⁴ At least one specimen representing this particular incident has been found in Benares.⁵ The artists of the Gāndhāra school divided this scene into four parts:—(1) The Bodhisattva enjoying the pleasures of domestic life, (2) the sleep of the females and the meditation of the Bodhisattva by the side of his wife, (3) the Bodhisattva leaving the females and (4) the Bodhisattva leaving Kapilavastu on horse-back. The last event was recognised by the Buddhist artists of the Gāndhāra school and subsequent schools of Indian sculpture as the most important part of the great renunciation and its representations, even among specimens of the Gāndhāra school, outnumber those of any other part of the same incident. Here we find the Bodhisattva on horse-back issuing out of the city or the palace gate,⁶ or going away attended by an umbrella bearer and hosts of gods and men, while the horse's hoofs are held up by earthspirits or *yakshas*.⁷ In the Gāndhāra school he leaves the city on horse-back, while his groom Chhandaka holds an umbrella over his head. Moreover the Bodhisattva is attended by Indra, the *nagara-devatā* and other beings. In the Mathurā school the incident is divided into two parts:—The Bodhisattva leaving the female apartments, while the females are asleep and (2) the Bodhisattva leaving the city on horse-back. In the second part it is to be noted that the *yakshas* holding the hoofs of the horse, so prominent in the Gāndhāra school, are absent.⁸ The best preserved specimen was discovered by Sir John Marshall in 1906-07.⁹ Though the upper part of the slab is broken the basrelief is in a good state of preservation. Other known specimens of the Benares school are in the Indian Museum collection. In the lower right corner of stele No. S. 1 the figure of the Bodhisattva on horse-back is mutilated and the diminutive horseman in the lower right corner of S. 3 also represents this scene.¹⁰