The great renunciation
Unknown (Kushan)
- British Museum
[Museum inv. no.: 1900,0414.12]
Item location
Description
Rectangular panel showing the Great Renunciation; damaged on the left side. The Bodhisattva, with both feet pendent, wears a necklace of multiple strands and confronted monster heads at the end of cylindrical terminals with a bead in between. His wife, with her right hand lying free, wears what looks like a narrow band from the left shoulder to the upper right arm and her wreath headdress has a pointed-leaf pattern. On the right a female guard with spear wears a long-sleeved tunic and necklace and stands beside a male figure with necklace and paridhāna. Both now lack faces. Below sits sleeping an attendant with diadem, earrings, necklace, anklets and sleeved tunic over a paridhāna. Another, on a low circular cushion, bare to the waist and with the same ornaments and a broad loop of hair at the back of the head, leans forward over a banded barrel drum. A third, dressed like the first attendant but with a different hairstyle and earrings, rests her head on a vertical banded barrel drum and passes an arm over the legs of another figure seated on a low circular cushion, naked to the waist and seen from the back, wearing a wreath and braided hair; a flower decorates her double anklet. Perhaps another two sleeping attendants, as well as Chandaka and the forepart of Kaṇṭhaka, are accounted for by the damaged left end.The couch has one pillow and a mattress, and a short patterned textile hanging from it with vertical plain bands separating bands of open flowers or scrolling; it is tucked in between the mattress and the bed frame, indicating that the top of the mattress is covered with a plain sheet. Behind, two slender pillars with moulded capitals support oil-lamps.
A double-framed and tapering column has a worn Corinthian capital and base mouldings as on the preceding piece. Below is a plain framing fillet.
Instruments [MIMO Code] (notes)
Barrel drum [2504]RIdIM images
