Indian Sculpture c8.134

c8.134

Iconographically the halo is of interest. Flat and cusped, it conforms with Kuṣāṇa types, but that it is oval deserves notice, as well as the shape of the back of the stele itself, which is like a liṅgam. (The topmost part could not be photographed, as the image is fixed in a recess.) A relatively plain ovoid or liṅgam-shaped slab belongs also to a Buddha from Sārnāth of the fifth century.206 The figure in front of the liṅgam-like slab is related to figures in front of the liṅgam—carved in the round—as the one from Guḍimallam207 (Fig. 36) or another from Mathurā.208 The non-iconic prototype of this combination is shown by a number of representations in Amarāvatī.209 There a lotus flower is the pedestal for the absent Buddha and behind it is the fiery liṅgam. The prabhāmaṇḍala, the halo along the entire image, suggests the liṅgam as the fiery breath of life.210 The śiraścakra, or the disc around the head of the image, however, has solar associations. Both of them tend to become fused, as in the present example. In later images the edge of the prabhāmaṇḍala is actually beset with flames.211