The Buddhist Art of Gandhara: The Story of the Early School, its Birth, Growth and Decline c17.15

c17.15

The queer, gnome-like Maitreya reproduced in fig. 142 is said by Major Cole to have come from Miyān Khān, but the Calcutta Museum Catalogue ascribes it to the Upper Monastery at Nathu.¹ Whichever is correct, it seems not unlikely that it is a very late effort from one of the Nathu-Sanghao ateliers. Its lateness alone, however, would obviously not account for its strange, almost elfish appearance or the utter gracelessness of its form. In this statue note that the halo is rayed and the hair bound round the uṣṇīṣa in the same way as in fig. 140, but that its waved moustache and debonair look are reminiscent rather of figs. 137 and 138, while the eyelids have the rare distinction of being almost wide open. A feature which it shares with some other very late images is the peculiar frilling round the scalloped hem of the skirt. The lotus base may signify that the Bodhisattva is conceived of as still in the Tushita heaven, but its meaning is not certain.