Abstract
In the collection of the National Museum Arts asiatiques-Guimet, Paris, France, there is a
stele in schist of the Gandhara style, depicting the Buddha and the sixteen ascetics, inv.
N° MA 12484. The Buddha is seated in a grotto and the grotto is in the mountain,
inhabited by animals and people, when the devas are flying from the sky to present their
homage to the Buddha. The Buddha himself wears the usual monastic coat, leaving the
right shoulder completely nude, without protection. He is doing the gesture of the
dharmacakra mudra, seated in the position of the meditation. Even if the relief is old and
sometimes very badly erased, the composition is clearly visible and, at the base, there is
the theory of the sixteen ascetics, each one adopting a different attitude. Thirteen figures
are visible. If the stele has suffered a lot in the past and the former centuries, it is
however complete, as well as the figure of the Buddha. The format is almost square, 64
cm high, 52 cm large, the composition well balanced, suggesting a painting, but a
painting where all the figures are carved in very high relief, with the depth of the grotto
where the Buddha appears.
PIERRE CAMBON. (2012) The visit of the sixteen ascetics to the Buddha seated in a grotto, A Gandhara stele, Paris collection, National Museum Arts , Pakistan Heritage, Volume 4, Issue 1.
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