Pilaster Gray Schist Gandhara

The pilaster surmounted by a Corinthian capital, two of its faces carved with figures of a seated bodhisattva, his hands folded in his lap in meditation and a Buddha his right hand raised in the gesture of reassurance.

Architectural elements such as these were used as to separate individual scenes in continuous narrative friezes. See Zwalf, 1996, vol. II, nos. 270-273 for the use of pilasters in such settings. The orientation of the present lot suggests that it may have been placed at the extreme right end of a narrative panel.