The Buddhist Art of Gandhara: The Story of the Early School, its Birth, Growth and Decline c13.s2.10

c13.s2.10

The same blending of Greek and Indian features is to be seen in the highly ornate fragment of a frieze reproduced in fig. 80. This, too, comes from the Dharmarājikā Stūpa and, like the foregoing, is made of chloritized micaceous schist. In the upper section is a richly carved vine-scroll of a typically Greek pattern and of great beauty.¹ Below, is an arcade of three pointed arches resting on dwarf Corinthian pilasters. The busts in Indian attire beneath the arches evidently represent gods looking out from the balcony of heaven, as in other Gandhāra reliefs, the figure with long hair under the central arch being Brahmā, and the one on the left Indra, who is wearing the same head-dress as in fig. 84. In the triangular spaces above the haunches of the arches are birds facing front with outspread wings—a common motif in Gandhāra art.