The Buddhist Art of Gandhara: The Story of the Early School, its Birth, Growth and Decline c9.23

c9.23

The other statue (fig. 28), which is in the same broad, massive style, was unearthed at the Dharmarājikā and is, therefore, unquestionably Buddhist. The figure, which is 16 in. high, is wearing a dhoti, shawl and bracelets. The left hand rests on the hip; the right is raised in front of the breast with the fingers in what is known as the chin-mudrā or jñāna-mudrā, denoting meditation, knowledge and purity. The head and feet are missing. Although the statue is ostensibly in the round, the back is not modelled and the front is flattened as in a relief. In spite of its relative coarseness, the broad, massive style lends an impressive dignity to this image, which was wanting in the preceding one. Both, however, belong to the late Śaka period, and we shall probably not be far wrong if we assign them to the first quarter of the first century A.D. That the image represents the great Teacher himself can hardly be questioned, and the bracelets on his wrists might be taken to show that it represents him as the Bodhisattva, not as the Accomplished Buddha. But the image, be it remembered, dates from a time when the canonical types of the Buddha and Bodhisattva had not yet been fixed, and it may well be that the figure is intended to portray the Buddha after his Enlightenment. In any case, it is the earliest image of Gautama now known to us.