The Buddhist Art of Gandhara: The Story of the Early School, its Birth, Growth and Decline c16.19

c16.19

The employment of architecture as a setting for dramatic scenes was, of course, familiar in earlier Gandhāra art, but in fig. 121 the emphasis laid on the setting is out of all proportion to the scene as a whole. This relief, which I judge to date from the Second Maturity Period, comes from Haḍḍa in Southern Afghānistān and is made of the fine limestone found in that region. Its subject is the first or ‘Enticement’ scene in the Conversion of Nanda, half-brother of the Buddha, the later scenes of which we have already encountered in fig. 116. Nanda is here shown as he leaves the chamber of his bride carrying the Buddha’s begging-bowl; to the left he is again shown tendering the bowl to the Buddha, who refuses to take it, thus inducing the prince to return with him to his monastery, where, despite his protestations, he is forthwith shaved and ordained. The figures in the gallery above are the same as those at the top of the lowest panel of fig. 116, namely the devas and devis witnessing the Buddha’s stratagem from aloft. In this relief the architecture is still an integral part of the scene, providing an imaginative and fanciful representation of the prince’s palace. But it is much overdone in relation to the rest of the picture, and is already paving the way for the use of architecture as the principal factor in compositions of an outstandingly decorative character, countless examples of which are to be seen among the Early Indian sculptures of Bhārhut, Bodh-Gayā, Sāñchī and Mathurā. This further stage is well illustrated in figs. 122 and 123, the former from Loriyān Tangai, the latter of schist from Muhammad Nāri. The subject of both pieces is the same as that illustrated in fig. 100, namely, the Miracle of Śrāvastī, when, in order to convert the unbelievers, the Buddha sat preaching in mid-air on a lotus provided by the two Nāga kings, Nanda and Upananda, and caused unending replicas of himself to appear stretching up to Heaven. The canopy above his head was provided by a mango-tree which he caused to grow miraculously from a seed. It is recorded that he preached in mid-air with flames issuing from his shoulders and a stream of water from his feet, and it is also recorded that a special pavilion for the performance of the miracle (*prātihārya-maṇḍapa*) was built by King Prasenajit. This most wonderful of all miracles was a specially favourite theme at this period, and in the normal versions some characteristic details are shown by which the miracle can at once be identified: the lotus, for example, and the Nāga-rājas who produced it, or the replicas of the Buddha imaged in mid-air, or the flames issuing from his head and the water flowing from his feet. But in fig. 122 the only features that remotely connect it with the great miracle are the border of conventional lotus leaves fringing the edge of the stool on which the Buddha is seated and the architectural setting which presumably represents the pavilion built by King Prasenajit. For the rest, it is a matter of guesswork to identify the scene or the actors in it. Indeed, it is not at the performance of the Śrāvastī Miracle that we are invited to wonder so much as at a highly decorative composition in which the figures are of little more consequence than the finely carved columns and balconies, the amorini and garland design adorning the plinth, and the miniature shrines and false windows that crown the roof.