Dipamkara Buddha Gray Schist Gandhara, Swat Valley

The Buddha standing in a flexed pose with his left knee bent slightly forward, his right hand displaying the abhaya mudra or gesture of reassurance. His finely pleated sanghati falls down to his ankles, one end gathered in his left hand. He stands on the large petals of a lotus flower, his serene youthful face framed by a richly carved radiating nimbus bearing five flower buds on its circumference.

This finely carved sculpture may be identified as the Dipamkara Buddha from the buds seen on the halo. According to the jatakas which recount tales of the Buddha's past lives, the young brahmin Sumati purchased five lotus flowers to offer to the Buddha on his visit to the city of Dipavati. Upon seeing the Buddha, Sumati tossed the flowers at him but they remained suspended in mid-air around his halo. The Buddha then blessed Sumati who prostrated himself at the feet of the master.

The story of the Dipamkara jataka was a popular theme in Gandharan art and is illustrated in several reliefs panels, with the Buddha shown wiping the soles of his feet on the long hair of the prostrate Sumati; see Kurita, 2003, vol. I, nos. 2-9, pp. 18-21. The Dipamkara Buddha is, however, rarely depicted independently, making the present lot a rare work. The figure is lifting his robe possibly as a gesture acknowledging Sumati, who would have been depicted kneeling below.

The carving of the drapery in flat incised ridges and the treatment of the broad face with wavy moustache is very akin to the style of Buddha images from the Swat and Buner regions; see Kurita, 2003, vol. I, nos. 256 & 257, p. 131 and no. 259, p. 132. For a very closely related work of similar proportions with an almost identical floral nimbus, also from Swat, see Kurita, 2003, vol. I, no. 10, p. 22.