The great renunciation
Unknown (Kushan)
- British Museum
[Museum inv. no.: 1979,0628.1]
Item location
Description
Stupa drum panel showing the Great Renunciation among the Women. The Bodhisattva sits frontally, wholly draped and with one foot on and the other beside a footstool. His wife, fully stretched behind, with wreath headdress, a loop of hair and necklace, lies frontally with legs together on a couch with turned legs and a plain textile between them; she is naked to the waist, a garment or coverlet over her feet. Her head is supported as on BM 1900.0414.12, and the half-length female guard with spear and wearing a wreath headdress and a loop of hair looks down at her while, at the foot of the bed, Chandaka, wearing a collar, earrings, armlets and a short paridhāna, brings a crested turban.On each side of the chamber sits a woman wearing a segmented wreath headdress and loop of hair, and a sleeved tunic with a paridhāna round it. One woman is bent forward, the other back; both perhaps are asleep, seated on a banded barrel drum and resting the hand(s) on another drum. Behind each is an apparently similarly dressed female, one holding a tambourine and bending forward, the other, with a harp tucked under her arm, raising her head, the body twisted as though caught in movement while playing.
The fascia of the flat-roofed chamber has sawtooth enrichment and is supported by partly undercut, tapering Corinthian columns on the usual base mouldings. The capitals are of square appearance and unworked at the sides.
The tapering framing column with the usual moulded base distinguishes the circular lower element of the Corinthian capital and is set in a deep frame with an undulating inner border. Under the scene is a plain framing fillet.
Instruments [MIMO Code] (notes)
Drum [2585]Tambourine [2746]
Harp [3285]
RIdIM images
