The Buddhist Art of Gandhara: The Story of the Early School, its Birth, Growth and Decline c12.17

c12.17

Fig. 59, the following piece, is exceptionally interesting. It is a fragment of chloritized micaceous schist which came from Loriyān Tangai and is now in the Calcutta Museum. No doubt it represents the First Sermon (cf. figs. 4 and 117). In the centre is the Buddha, represented by a pillar surmounted by three interlaced wheels symbolizing at once the Law (*dharmacakra*) and the Trinity or Three Jewels (*triratna*). The triple wheels are supported by a *yaksha* emerging *à mi-corps* from the foliate capital of the Corinthian pillar, on the shaft of which is a vine-scroll in low relief, with the footprints of the Teacher on the base below. To the right and left of the pillar are two arched doorways, and in front of each, in attitudes of worship, are two shaven monks representing Kauṇḍinya and his companions, one of whom is missing where the stone is broken at the left-hand bottom corner. On the left side of the fragment are three celestials, come to adore the Buddha, and above them a winged angel holding an offering in his left hand. The flat base of the panel is enriched with a band of rosette-and-sheaf pattern. In the details of this relief there is much to merit attention. We note in particular the similarity of the fine surface ornament, including the rosette-and-sheaf pattern, to that on the throne of Śuddhodana in fig. 54, and also the similarity of the fine delineation of the monks’ features. On the other hand, we cannot help being struck by the deterioration in the treatment of the robes, with little more than incised lines to represent their folds, just as in the decadent Graeco-Śaka work of an earlier generation. But while this panel evidences a further stage in the decline of technical skill, it also evidences a brave effort on the part of the sculptor to introduce a touch of realism and variety into the scene by depicting the monks as if they had just emerged from the doorway of their cells. It matters little that his experiment was not very successful: that the doorways are oddly awry. It was a step in the right direction—a step that was eventually to lead to a freer and more decorative kind of composition, though to the end, let it be said, Gandhāra art never succeeded in attaining anything like the freedom of the Early Indian School.