The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c9.176

c9.176

At the bottom are four lay attendants: two of them, the one on the left holding a fly-flapper and the one on the right with his hands joined, seem to be simple worshipping divinities; but in the two nearer to the standing Buddhas we must, according to all appearance, by the flowers which serve as attributes to them recognize two Bodhisattvas; on the right Maitreya, who in his position as future Buddha has an equal right to the honour of a lotus seat, holds a nāga-puṣpa; on the left Avalokiteçvara holds a padma. Garlands hang down; it rains flowers. (Cf. above, pp. 165-6).