Eastern Indian School of Mediaeval Sculpture c8.s2.33

c8.s2.33

Maitreya, the Messiah of Buddhism, is rarely met with in the Eastern School. There are two forms of this Bodhisattva in the *Sādhanas*. When he is an attendant of Buddha, he has two hands and holds a fly-whisk in his right and a branch of a Nāgakeśara in his left hand. The collection in the Indian Museum contains two separate images of Maitreya with two hands, in both of which there is a chaitya in his head-dress and in one of them there are two four-armed female figures in attendance upon him. In these two images the Bodhisattva holds a branch of the Nāgakeśara in his proper left hand, while the right hand is in the posture of blessing (*varada-mudrā*).⁸ The *Sādhanas* describe another Maitreya with three faces and four hands but no specimen of this particular type has been discovered amongst specimens of the Eastern School of Mediæval Sculpture.⁹