Eastern Indian School of Mediaeval Sculpture c7.97.3

c7.97.3

The figure of the Earth-goddess is to be seen very clearly on the fragment of a stele discovered by Sir John Marshall at Sārnāth.² In addition to these basreliefs or stelæ, the artists of the Benares school represented the illumination on separate images, which are really modifications of basreliefs. The first excavations of Sārnāth in the present century brought to light a magnificent image of this class representing the illumination which was dedicated by the Buddhist elder (sthavira) Bandhugupta. This particular image is indeed the earliest specimen of this new class of image-basreliefs which were elaborated to a very great extent by the artists of the eastern school of mediæval sculpture. On this image we find the Earth-goddess represented fully and not as emerging partly out of the earth and approaching the adamantine throne, on which the Master is seated, from the proper left.³ Unfortunately the image could not be identified at the time of its discovery.⁴ The Earth-goddess Prithivī is also to be found in a small fragmentary basrelief exhumed in the same year.⁵ In certain specimens discovered at Sārnāth we find a female with a jar on the pedestal of images representing the illumination. Thus in a basrelief of the Gupta period discovered in 1906-07⁶ we find a female offering a pot or a jar, evidently containing some food, in front of the adamantine throne.