The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c9.170

c9.170

In its present state the group consists only of the remains of a seated Buddha, and another standing on his left. Both are of gigantic size, as may be judged from the man placed between them. The attendant one, draped to the neck, like the Gandhāra images, makes with his right hand the gesture intimating absence of fear. The splendour of their tejas covers the whole rocky wall with a tracery of tongues of flame; from this background stand out nimbuses and aureoles in the form of circular or elliptical bands bearing a quantity of small figures of Buddha seated in the Indian manner in the attitude of meditation.