The Buddhist Art of Gandhara: The Story of the Early School, its Birth, Growth and Decline c13.s2.8

c13.s2.8

(c) MISCELLANEOUS SCULPTURES OF THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD To complete our survey of Gandhāra sculpture in its Adolescent stage, I append some miscellaneous pieces which admirably illustrate the way in which, from about the middle of the first century onwards, the newly revived Hellenistic art became blended with the Indian. So far as my information goes all the sculptures in this miscellaneous group are made either of grey micaceous schist or of chloritic micaceous schist. The first of them (fig. 78) used to be in the possession of the Church Missionary Society at Peshāwar, but has now, I understand, been donated to the Peshāwar Museum. It is made of grey micaceous schist and appears to be the lowest block of a jamb belonging to a false niche. The grape-vine scrolls and the bead-and-reel and imbricated leaf-moulding are purely Greek patterns, but there are two features which have clearly been inspired by Buddhist work of the Early Indian School. One is the palmette-like lotus plant at the base of the outer vine-scroll on the left. This is the abbreviated form of the Lotus Tree of Life and Fortune, frequently seen on monuments of the Early Indian School, like the gateways of the Great Stūpa at Sāñchī. The other is the male figure at the base of the larger vine-scroll, who despite his Greek tunic is obviously meant for a yaksha of the same class as those portrayed on the gateways at Sāñchī with gift-bearing lotuses either held in their hands or issuing from their mouths or navels.