The Age of the Imperial Guptas c9.51

c9.51

The Calcutta Museum possesses a peculiar stele which bears three superimposed bas-reliefs. This stele must have stood separate yet it does not begin with the birth or Māyā’s dream about her conception and does not end with the Mahāparinirvāṇa. This peculiar stelae contains the scene of Perfect Enlightenment at the bottom combined with the allurement of Māra’s daughters and the attack of Māra’s army, the first sermon in the centre, and the Devāvatāra near the top. It is difficult to judge whether there were bas-reliefs over the top (S. 4).¹ Stele bearing single incidents of Buddha’s life become more important in the Benares school and the most prominent incident chosen was the great miracle of Śrāvastī, S. 5 in the Indian Museum, Calcutta and C (a) 6 of the Sarnath Museum.² Other incidents are also, common but rarely represented; such as Buddha at the time of the Perfect Enlightenment dedicated by the Buddhist elder (Sthavira) Bandhugupta.³ These stelae were the peculiar creations of the artists of the Benares school and they do not seem to have found favour anywhere outside the limits of Buddhist Benares. Very few specimens of this particular type of stelae have been discovered elsewhere. Subsequent schools adopted and elaborated the ideas of the Benares school and some adopted the system of separate images, but none used the superimposed stele of the Benares type.