The Buddhist Art of Gandhara: The Story of the Early School, its Birth, Growth and Decline c17.12

c17.12

Another group of these images of a notably different style is represented by figs. 139 and 140, the former from Sahrī-Bahlol and now in the Peshāwar Museum, the latter in the Lahore Museum. This group was a large one and survived well on into the third century, showing increasing evidence of deterioration up to the last. All wear the same princely attire and ornaments, but their demeanour is simple and unassuming, without affectation or dandyism. One of the earliest and best is fig. 139, which, like so many cult statues of this period, represents the Bodhisattva Maitreya, as a symbol of whom he holds a flask (*kamaṇḍalu*) in his left hand. The eyes, like those of the Buddha, are half-closed, the moustache small and unobtrusive, the torso relatively slim and shapely. Evidence of date is furnished by the drapery, and particularly by the pleated and scalloped border of the skirt, and still more precisely by the figural relief on the pedestal, of which there are many close parallels.