Eastern Indian School of Mediaeval Sculpture c7.81

c7.81

After leaving his home, the Bodhisattva began to practise austerities, and became emaciated with continual fasting. The emaciation of the Master was a favourite scene with the artists of the Gāndhāra school. Consequently we find representations of the emaciated Bodhisattva in separate images as well as in basreliefs. The celebrated image of the emaciated Bodhisattva discovered at Sikri,¹ which is now in the Lahore Museum collection and the new one found by Dr. D. B. Spooner at Takht-i-Bahi in 1907-08,² are good examples. Among basreliefs the incident is to be found on a specimen in the Indian Museum collection.³ There is another basrelief representing the same incident in the Lahore Museum.⁴ Representations of this particular scene have not been discovered among the specimens of the Mathurā or Benares schools of sculpture. In the eastern school of mediæval sculpture this incident is represented on both stelæ of the first class. In Br. 5 it is to be found to the left of that representing the cutting of the hair. The Master is seated in the posture of meditation, attended by a human figure on each side. The corresponding space in the Sibbati stele is occupied by figures of the donor and his family. But the incident is to be found in that stele, to the left of the figure of Māra, shooting arrows at the Bodhisattva, on the extreme left of the last but one band. Here the Bodhisattva is surrounded by several other figures, all of whom have become indistinct. In this case, however, we find at least three figures standing on the right and two on the left. These figures may represent the presentation of the pāyasa to Buddha by Sujātā or Nandabālā, as one of the female figures, on the extreme right in the Sibbati stele, holds a vessel in her hands. These incidents, however, are minor incidents of the Master's life; they were followed by his illumination or sambodhi, when he became a perfect Buddha and this event is regarded by the Buddhists as the principal incident of the Master's life.