The Buddhist Art of Gandhara: The Story of the Early School, its Birth, Growth and Decline c11.8

c11.8

the form and postures of the figures are Greek rather than local, but men and women alike are wearing local instead of Greek dress and all are carrying lotuses in their hands. The original provenance of these three panels is not known. Along with several other panels of the same kind they were formerly in the collection of the Church Missionary Society at Peshāwar. Figs. 43 and 44 are now in the Peshāwar Museum. The whereabouts of the other panel, said to be of yellowish-grey pot-stone, I have been unable to discover. In each panel there are six figures, three men and three women. All wear the native dhoti, tied with a girdle at the waist and reaching to the ankles. The upper part of the body is bare, except for a long shawl which is usually draped over the left shoulder and arm, and allowed to fall in a graceful fold below the right hip. Some of the women, however, wear the scarf draped over both shoulders, with a loose inflated length behind the head and shoulders, and the ends hanging down evenly on each side instead of both being on the left side. The men wear twisted turbans of the same kind as those worn by the stucco Bodhisattvas in Sirkap. The women wear wreaths above their carefully dressed coiffures. For ornaments, the men wear a necklace and a single bangle on each wrist; the women have a similar kind of necklace but several bangles on their wrists as well as heavy anklets on their ankles. Notwithstanding that the women are in native costume, it is noticeable that they are portrayed with small, firm breasts, not at all in the local tradition.