The Buddhist Art of Gandhara: The Story of the Early School, its Birth, Growth and Decline c8.6

c8.6

The group in fig. 1 forms part of the crowning ornaments on the summit of the North Gateway of the Great Stūpa, the centre-piece of which (not included in the photo) is a dharmacakra or ‘Wheel of the Law’, of which more will be said anon. On either side of this Wheel and directly above the gateway jambs, stands a symbol of the triratna or ‘Three Jewels’—the Trinity of Buddhism—and beside them an attendant yaksha holding a fly-whisk in their honour. The triratna or Three-Jewel symbol, derived from the older nandipada or ‘taurine’ symbol, was familiar at all ages on Buddhist monuments, but it was not always of the same form. Here, the wheel, centred with a lotus, must be taken to represent the dharma or Buddhist doctrine, the trident above it the Master, and the curious shield-like symbol in the centre (śrīvatsa) the Community (saṅgha). In some other examples of this symbol among the Sāñchī sculptures the ‘shield’ is omitted, and among the Gandhāra sculptures we shall find a wheel set on each of the Trident prongs (fig. 70), or the Trident replaced by three interlaced wheels (fig. 59). The figure of the attendant yaksha, it be remarked, has a somewhat stiff and wooden appearance, in marked contrast with the free and supple figures in some of the reliefs, such as those in the right half of fig. 7. A point has been made of showing the yaksha from the back rather than the front because free standing figures are very rare among these sculptures as they are also in Gandhāra art. For other details, cf. Marshall and Foucher, Monuments of Sāñchī, pls. XXII, XXIV, XXVIII.