The Buddhist Art of Gandhara: The Story of the Early School, its Birth, Growth and Decline c13.s2.3

c13.s2.3

The panels which adorn the circular base of the Sikri Stūpa are thirteen in number, and carved from the same stone as the rest of its facing—a dark grey, almost black, carbonaceous schist. Of the five selected for illustration, fig. 73 depicts the Dīpaṅkara Jātaka. It is the first version of this familiar story that we have encountered, but we shall encounter others later. Here we see the Dīpaṅkara Buddha as much the same ungainly figure as the Gautama Buddha was in the Mardān and Sanghao-Nathu reliefs, with the same robes, the same *uṣṇīṣa*, and the same expansive halo. The only difference is that in the intervening years his stature has grown a little taller in proportion to the people around him, and his *uṣṇīṣa* a little smaller. We also observe that, in this relief, he is attended, not by the usual Vajrapāṇi, but by a *bhikshu*. In later versions of this scene, however, he has his own Vajrapāṇi. In front of the Dīpaṅkara the young Sumati (or Sumedha) is repeated four times: first bargaining with the flower-seller in the gateway of the city, then throwing his lotus flowers in the air, then prostrating himself at the feet of the Master, and lastly suspended like the lotus flowers in the air. Two minor points in this carving that are worth noting are the small cut made in the arris of the base for the foot of Sumati (a very unusual device), and the heavy wreath worn by the flower-seller—a survival from the Graeco-Parthian period.