Provenance:
Claude de Marteau, Brussels, acquired in the 1970s
Several events in the life of the Buddha Sakyamuni are depicted in Gandharan art, and representations of his birth, youth, renunciation, Enlightenment, and passing away were particularly popular themes with Gandharan sculptors. This relief shows the parinirvana of the Buddha in a rather unusual manner.
The teacher, on his death bed, is depicted at the center of the relief. His head and body are completely swathed in cloth, and his face is not visible. The Buddha supports his head on his right arm. He is surrounded by disciples and other figures who are depicted in a state of mourning.
Literary sources for the parinirvana of the Buddha in Gandhara are the Pali and Sanskrit versions of the Mahaparinirvanasutra. These texts describe the main events shortly before and immediately after the death of the Budda. When the Buddha became ill in the Sala Forest, he asked Ananda to prepare a bed for him in such a manner that he could rest with his head facing to the north. The Enlightened One lay on his right side “like a lion,” one foot covering the other, but he remained intensely conscious of the events taking place around him. Two other monks, Aniruddha and Subhadra, were also present at his side. Only Mahakasyapa was absent since he was travelling from Pava to Kusinagara in the company of several other monks. It is said that on the way he met an ascetic, a member of the Ajivika sect, who showed him a mandaraka blossom that he had picked up at the site of the Buddha’s parinirvana. Mahakasyapa thereupon hastened to Kusinagara where he approached the funeral pyre and, opening the lid of the coffin, paid his last respects to Buddha.
In this relief, Aniruddha, with a shaven head and draped in a typical monk’s vestment, stands at the head of the Buddha. His right hand is extended towards Ananda, who lies on the ground struck by inconsolable grief. Standing behind the Buddha is Vajrapani holding a cauri (flywhisk) and flanked by three turbaned nobles and an Ajivika monk with a shawl over his head and stick in his left hand. Diminutive apsaras throw offerings from the tree branches in the upper corners.
The particular iconography of Sakyamuni's body resting on an elaborate couch and wrapped in layers of cloth shares its design with panels in the Brooklyn Museum of Art (69.125.8) and the Asian Art Museum, Berlin (published in Kurita, Gandharan Art, Vol. I: The Buddha's Life Story, 2003, fig. 496); also see other comparable works in the collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum, National Museum of Asian Art, Washington D.C., and the British Museum (ibid., figs. 482, 483 & 486), as well as several other panels where his head is shrouded (ibid., figs. 494-499).