Description

Traveling from Kapilavastu to her parent’s kingdom, Queen Mayadevi gave birth to the young prince, Siddhartha, in the Lumbini grove. This is a stupa casing slab from Gandhara narrates different moments from this event in one episode. During the Kushan period, a number of events from Buddha’s life were depicted. The momentous occasion of Sidhartha’s birth has been crystallised in this figural format wherein the progression of events is depicted in a singular scene. The Gandharan artists carved biographical events from Shakyamuni Buddha’s life on the stupas narrating and preaching the monks and the laity. Queen Maya standing with slight flexion of the body is shown as holding the branch of a sala tree. The child Buddha appears to be issuing from her waist section. The bejewelled lady is accompanied by three headed Brahma, the creator of the universe and four-armed Vishnu, the preserver. A small figure of the Buddha is shown standing on five lotuses to the right side of the lady symbolizing the seven steps after his birth. As legends say, the Buddha, taking seven steps declared, “I am born for enlightenment of the good of the world; this is my last birth in the world of phenomena”. Indra, the lord of the heaven, who received the child after birth, is seen on the right side with a cloth in his hands. A female attendant is seen on the left.Two devotees are seated on the pedestal.