The Buddhist Art of Gandhara: The Story of the Early School, its Birth, Growth and Decline c13.s1.3

c13.s1.3

Fig. 69, which is in the Bombay Museum, depicts the submission of the Nāga Apalāla. Though the workmanship is rough, the story is told simply and effectively—more effectively, I think, than in some of the later and more sophisticated versions. To the left, in the foreground, are the Nāga-rāja and his wife, emerging from the waters of a tank. Above them, among the rocks, is a dwarf-like yaksha, smiting the mountain with a vajra and making the earth tremble. On the right is the figure of the Buddha in a protective pose, and behind him the Vajrapāṇi, here clad in a monk’s robe like the Master himself, while above him, in the background, appear the head and shoulders of another monk. On the forehead of the Vajrapāṇi is a curious mark, which appears to be a third eye, suggesting an Indian origin. This Vajrapāṇi beside the Buddha is quite distinct from the yaksha engaged in smiting the mountain side. The fact that the latter has a vajra in his hand does not make a Vajrapāṇi of him. Primarily the vajra or thunderbolt was an attribute of Indra, as, from time immemorial, it had been of the Greek Zeus. But, as the weapon par excellence of irresistible force, it was put into the hands of other deities or superhuman beings, of Athene and Poseidon, for example, among the Greeks; of the Vajrapāṇi and of this earth-shaking yaksha among the Buddhists.