The Buddhist Art of Gandhara: The Story of the Early School, its Birth, Growth and Decline c16.11

c16.11

The four following pieces, figs. 116-19, afford striking illustrations of the growing formality and stylization which marked the work of this period and of the increasing popularity of the pretty-faced *devas*. Fig. 116 is an upright panel (*urdhvapatta*), about 24 in. high, of greyish-white micaceous schist, which came originally from Jamāl-Garhī and is now in the Calcutta Museum. It depicts three scenes from the story of Nanda, half-brother of the Buddha. Of the bottom one, nothing is now left except four pretty heads of *devas* looking on while Nanda is being enticed from his home by the Buddha. This part of the story is told in fig. 121, where Nanda is shown leaving his lovely wife and starting out, with the Buddha’s begging-bowl in hand, to accompany him back to his monastery. But, alas, for Nanda! No sooner had they arrived there than Nanda, much against his will, had his head shaved by the monks’ barber and was forth-with ordained into the Order. This is the scene depicted in the middle panel where the barber is in the act of shaving Nanda, while the Buddha pours out the ceremonial water. At the Buddha’s right shoulder stands the Vajrapāṇi with beard carefully curled in the fashion of the time; and gazing down benignly on the scene are the angelic faces of four *devas* similar to those in the panel below. From then on Nanda was kept an unwilling prisoner in the monastery, and the top panel depicts one of his many attempts to escape. On this occasion he had been left in sole charge of the monastery, with instructions from the Buddha to close all the cell doors before going out. This he tried to do, but had no sooner shut one door than another flew open. So at last he gave up trying and set out to return to his home. But in vain; for as he made his way stealthily through a wood, the Buddha suddenly appeared, advancing towards him; and when Nanda tried to hide behind a tree, the tree rose into the air, leaving him face to face with the Master, who promptly marched him back to the monastery. The story, as told in the relief, is unmistakable. First, on the extreme right, the figure of Nanda locking one of the monastery doors; then the same figure kneeling at the feet of the Buddha, with the tree suspended in the air above his head, while the Vajrapāṇi and other figures stand by, and the celestials look on from above.