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Bodhisattvas or Deified Kings: A Note on Gandhara SculptureAuthor(s): Benjamin Rowland Jr.Reviewed work(s):Source: Archives of the Chinese Art Society of America, Vol. 15 (1961), pp. 6-12Published by: University of Hawai'i Press for the Asia SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20067027 .
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Bodhisattvas or Deified Kings: A Note on Gandhara Sculpture
Benjamin Rowland, Jr.
Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Nearly every collection of Gandhara sculpture has its statues with figures in
princely dress, turbaned and bejewelled, and generally labeled "Bodhisattva."
Sometimes, these figures are designated as Siddh?rtha, Maitreya, or even as
other members of the Buddhist pantheon. There has always been a question in the
writer's mind on the validity of these identifications. The present study is not directed
towards establishing the identity of the various Bodhisattvas portrayed, a question that
requires a separate and intensive iconographical investigation.
This article, in other words, is not an attempt to explore the problem of which Bodhisattvas these figures represent but an examination of
the justification for describing them as Bodhi sattvas at all, an aspect of the subject that is
obviously intimately related to the stylistic char
acter of these images as well. In this later con
nection, it is proposed to analyze the style of
the Gandhara Bodhisattvas with special regard for their affiliations with Indian and Western
prototypes.
The first impression which the beholder has of these statues is of Apollo-like youths, weighted down by an elaborate and sumptuous dress com
posed of a variety of Indian, northern Asiatic,
and classical articles of dress. The way in which
these figures are enveloped in their heavy and
voluminous costumes even carries a faint remi
niscence of the famous statue of King Mausolus
of Caria. Their ponderous dignity, which in
part derives from these opulent accoutrements,
makes us feel in the presence of royal person
ages. Although not even the best of these images are anatomically perfect in proportion, they have none of the rigidity of Parthian and Kushan
effigies but are strikingly reminiscent of Graeco
Roman precedent both in the suggestion of a
kind of physical suppleness and in many indi vidual details.
When they were first discovered in the 19 th
century by General Cunningham these images were identified as portraits of rulers. They were later recognized as Bodhisattvas by Gr?n
wedel, and subsequent to this Coomaraswamy reverted to the original identification as Rajahs,
perhaps, like the later royal portraits of Cam
bodia, shown in the guise of divine beings.1
A number of particularly beautiful Bodhi sattvas in the Royal Ontario Museum present us with a variety of problems regarding the
real identity and stylistic evolution of these
images. The first of these is the usual portrayal of a youthful personage in royal costume, con
sisting of dhoti, overmantle, and a variety of
torques and necklaces ornamenting the nude
torso (Fig. 1 ). The figure holds a kundik? in the left hand and for this reason is perhaps to be identified as Maitreya; in the plinth are rep resentations of two Buddhas seated in medita
tion to right and left of what appears to be an
alms bowl surmounted by a royal umbrella. The
Buddhas are attended by two figures in monastic
dress. The two Buddhas are probably representa tions of S?kyamuni and Maitreya, and the bowl
is probably the patra of Buddha, which, accord
ing to legend, rose magically to the Tushita
Heaven where it was reverently received by the
Bodhisattva Maitreya. As Fa Hsien reported, "The Thousand Buddhas of this Bhadra Kalpa
will all of them use this same alms dish."2
An esthetically even more attractive statue
is a black schist image of a royal personage (Fig. 2). The figure wears an undergarment or an
taravasarka, which falls in the usual archaistic
swallowtail pleats. Over this the personage wears
a voluminous shawl or cloak, which passes over
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Fig. 1. Standing bod hisattva, Maitreya (?) Gandhara, 2nd-3rd century A.D. Black schist.
Height: 34l/i inches. Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto.
the left shoulder and is rolled around the left arm. These garments are evidently the "two
white robes" which, according to the Kadam
bari, the king puts on after his bath, or the two
articles of royal costume mentioned by the
Buddhacarita.' The hair falls in long ringlets to
the shoulders, and on the top of the head it is
gathered together by a network of jewels termi
nating below the krobilos in a half-length female
figure who holds two of the strands in her
hands. The face of this princely figure with its
arched eyebrows is bilaterally symmetrical, and in spite of a rather masklike dryness of
execution is still peculiarly classical in feeling (Fig. 3). The prototype, even to the cutting of
the eyes and mouth, is to be found in models
like the Capitoline Venus1 or the Apollo Belve
dere (Fig. 4). Around the neck is a wide torque
Fig. 2. Royal Portrait or Bodbisattva, Gandhara, 2nd-3rd century. Black schist. Height: 49
inches. Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto.
decorated with coinlike medallions, and in the
center a completely classical bust of a bearded
deity, perhaps Herakles, draped and holding a
club in his left hand. This object is strikingly similar to a number of objects of Alexandrian
manufacture including a copper bangle from
Taxila (Fig. 5).n In addition to this torque the
figure wears a necklace terminating in two
dragon heads holding a cabuch?n in their
mouths.
The technique of the drapery of this figure with its multiple ridge-like folds has many paral
lels in Gandhara reliefs and Roman portrait statues of the 1st century A.D., as, for example, the two statues of Livia, one from the Villa dei
Misteri at Pompeii, the other in the Bardo Palace
in Tunis.0
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Fig. 3. Detail of head, of Fig. 2.
%& ' 3*1'
Fig. 5. Copper bangle. Archaeo
logical Museum, Taxila.
Fig. 4. Head of the Apollo Belvedere. Late Hellenistic. Rome, Vatican Museum.
Fig. 6. Head of a Royal Personage, or the Bodhisattva Siddh?rtha. Gandhara. Slate. Philadelphia Museum of Art.
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The Graeco-Roman stylistic ancestry of this
and other portrait statues is not hard to find.
The refined, somewhat effeminate facial type of the young noble is a derivation from the late
Hellenistic ideal of the Apollo Belvedere, and even the fashion of wearing the hair in a braided
topknot or krobilos in examples like the head in the Philadelphia Museum follows the fashion of the Greek sun god (Fig. 6). The modelling of the body in a rather smooth generalized fashion with an almost complete suppression of
the muscular structure is somewhat reminiscent
of the Graeco-Roman tradition, but, as will be
explained below, is essentially even more formal
ized. Closest of all to Western precedents is the
manner of representing the skirt in a series of
stiff, swallow-tail shapes, with the folds repre sented by hard, schematized lines. This is a style that closely copies the Neo-Attic archaistic
fashion for imitating the drapery of the earliest
styles of Greek sculpture.7 Although as portraits these donor figures may appear extremely ideal
ized, they are at the same time extraordinarily realistic in the representation of details of cos
tumes. The sculptor has been at pains to repro duce with considerable fidelity the form of the turban pins, the earrings, and jewelled torques,
which correspond closely to actual specimens of
jewelry that have been found at Taxila and elsewhere. With similar fidelity the carver has
represented the golden armlet and the amulet
boxes strung across the chest (Fig. I).8
There is not a single example of these bejewelled
portrait statues known to me that reveals the
remotest comprehension of the organic articu
lation of the body in the Graeco-Roman sense.
The actual anatomy has something of the archaic
combination linear definition and modelling that
marks the early Indian images but lacks any
suggestion of vitality and breathing life. There
is more pattern than form or suggestion of
growth in structure or pose, so that the impres sion is very much the same sort of ornamental
patternization that we discern in the treatment
of drapery. The figures appear like the work
of provincials?Syrian, Parthian, or Indian, it
does not matter?who evidently learned some
of the superficial tricks of the technique of Roman sculpture and certain formulae, with
out ever being able to grasp the underlying
problems of the formal physical organization and articulation of the body. The figures are a
combination of many separately composed units ;
some parts, like the faces, are often of real
beauty, but without any sense of fundamental
unity, anatomical or aesthetic. Insofar as it is
possible to be specific chronologically, the mod
elling of the bodies is like a further simplifica tion or Indianization of the structure vaguely reminiscent of the Phidian style that appears in
some carving of the Antoine Period.
A statue of a Bodhisattva in the Indian Mu
seum, Calcutta provides an illustration of how
the sculptors who came to Gandhara adapted the formulae of representing Roman dress for
the costume of this princely figure in Gand
hara (Fig. 7). The Gandhara figure is repre sented wearing a robe which leaves one shoulder
exposed and a mantle, the heavy folds of which
pass in front of the body and are supported by the arms. This is an arrangement which approxi
mates the dress of a number of Roman female
portraits, one formerly in the Altes Museum in
Berlin,9 the other in the museum at Aix-les
bains.10 Both are presumably of the early first
century A.D. The schematization of the drapery of the Gandhara statue into so many attenuated
lancet shapes, with the crests of the folds in
sharp ridges, represents a conventionalization of
the structure of these Roman prototypes. But
the feeling for the separate voluminous exist
ence of the drapery is there, as well as the classic
revelation of the full bodily form. It could be said that the relationship of pieces like this to
Roman originals is very much the same as the
relationship of the famous Visitation group at
Reims to a classical prototype (Figs. 8 and 9).n
In these Gothic figures at Reims the drapery,
although preserving something of the volumi
nous character of the classical original, is re
ordered in a system of line-rhythms that sug
gests the manipulations of a Gothic calligrapher, the stone equivalents of Villard d'Honnecourt's
linear translations of classical garments.12 The
faces are, of course, animated by spiritual ex
pressiveness unknown to classic art. Similarly, in the Gandhara image, although the folds and
arrangement appear close to a Graeco-Roman
model, a certain stiffness and formalization have
begun to transform the garment into a more
linear Oriental mould. The facial mask, reminis
cent of the classical ideal, has something of the
symmetry and rigidity which we associate with
Parthian art. The jewels are of course taken
from real Indian ornaments, and although this
insistence on the actual is part of Roman por
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Fig. 8. The Visitation. Reims Cathedral. 13 th century, Gothic.
Fig. 9. Portrait of Agrippina Roman. National Museum, Athens.
Fig. 7. Royal Portrait, or
Bodhisattva. Gandhara.
Indian Museum, Calcutta.
traiture, the addition of such regalia to cult
images is part of the old Indian tradition.
A question which should be raised in relation to the date of the Gandh?ra statues of Buddhas
and Bodhisattvas is their connection with the
copies of these Indian statues in China. Do the
latter bear the relation of Roman copies to
Greek originals of centuries earlier or are they
replicas of cult images which are still being made in Gandh?ra at approximately the same
time as these Chinese facsimiles? Japanese schol ars have dated the Gandh?ra type Buddha in the Fogg Museum and the gilt bronze Bodhi sattva of the Fujii Collection in Kyoto in the late third century, so that it is in the realm of
possibility that these icons are either imports from Gandh?ra or copies made while the Gand
h?ra school was still in existence as an active
center.13 The figure in the Fujii Collection ac
tually seems more like a Chinese copy, since it
has the formalized features and enlargd head and
Fig. 10. Gold Amulet boxes. Archaeological Museum, Taxila.
hands which came to be a typical stylistic aspect of Six Dynasties sculpture in China. But in every other respect it is an accurate replica of the
typical Gandh?ra Bodhisattva.
The realism of these sainted portraits extends to the representation of details. The jewels are all
representations of actual bracelets and torques, such as have been found at Taxila and else
where. Some of this jewelry was undoubtedly
imported from the Roman world, such as the
necklace with the bust of a bearded Herakles
figure; the armlets with their dragon ornaments
are perhaps Sarmatian imports. Actual turban
pins with figures in repouss? have come to light at Taxila.14
An iconographical feature which testifies to
the essentially human character of the Gandh?ra
Bodhisattva is the charm boxes which he wears
on one or more chains across the chest (Fig. 1).
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This is a reflection of a custom going back to
the amulet-loving aborigines who believed that
the wearer of such spells bore a charmed life.15
These spells or dharanis?talismanic sets of words of magic import?enclosed in the little caskets are an exotic device of animistic origin, adapted
by the Buddhists for the purpose of protecting superstitious humanity against specific fears and
dangers in the external world by the outward means to which it had long been accustomed.
It may be noted that various types of charms
and amulets are worn by deities at S?nchi and Bh?rhut.16 Amulet boxes of exactly the same
type worn by the Gandh?ra figures have been found at Taxila (Fig. 10).
Besides the fact that they are representations of sainted personages in Indian royal dress, the
so-called Gandh?ra Bodhisattvas show little rela tion iconographically or stylistically to the por
trayal of the yaksas, nagas, and other deities in
the sculpture of the Sunga and Andhra Periods.
Although essentially elements of the costume, like the dhoti and armlets and necklaces, are
similar, the type and style of these articles are
just as different as is the style of carving the
figures as a whole.
It is noteworthy that the dress of the Gandh?ra Bodhisattva statues has no resemblance at all to
the accoutrement of the Kushan royal portrait statues, which has many affiliations with Par thian costume.17 The finery of the Gandh?ra
images must be modelled on that of a local native
nobility, princes of Indian or Indo-Greek race, who had no blood connection with the Scythian rulers. It is evident, also, that the facial types are unrelated to the features of the Kushanas as
we know them from their coins and fragmentary portrait statues. Kushan official art, as known in the Mat images at Mathura and the frag
ments from Surkh Khotal, is more related to western Asiatic forms as represented by the
royal effigies of Parthian and Sasanian date.18
There are no indications of any sponsoring of Buddhism by the Kushan rulers beyond the patronage of the faith by Kanishka, so that one
may well ask if the entire support for Buddhism and the Gandh?ra school came from the native
population; that is, a native Indian nobility de voted to Buddhism, whereas the religion of the Kushan ruling house, judging by their coins and the finds at Surkh Khotal, was of a decidedly syncretic nature.
One question which is raised by the figures in
the crowns of these so-called royal Bodhisattvas
is whether these attributes may really be used as a means of identifying these personages as
members of the Mah?y?na pantheon. The sub
jects represented in these turban pins vary con
siderably. There are not only miniature Buddha
figures but also representations of the Garuda
and a figure in a four-horse chariot.19 Some of
these, like the Garuda, have nothing to do with
the iconography of any of the great Bodhisattvas.
It should be noted that the appearance of figures of different types in headdresses or crowns is
not limited to Gandh?ra. In a number of Pal
myra busts small half-length figures appear in
the so-called conical modius headdress.20 It has
been suggested that possibly these miniature fig ures represent divinities worshipped by the per sons whose crowns they ornament, or that
possibly they represent badges of distinction
given by civic or religious authorities.21 It may be
that in some cases these Palmyra portraits rep resent priests wearing crowns with the image of
the god they served. A Hellenistic bust in the Vatican shows a personage wearing a diadem
with what looks like an enlarged medallion modelled from one of the early Seleucid coins with royal portraits. It has been suggested that
possibly this is a representation of Antiochus I
wearing a portrait medallion of his father Seleu
cus, or that possibly the head is simply a repre sentation of a priest attached to the royal cult
of one of the Seleucid monarchs.22 These parallels make one wonder if the richly attired Gandh?ra
figures, loosely described as Bodhisattvas, are not
in many cases representations of lay personages or donors wearing emblems in their turbans to
proclaim their attachment to the Buddha or
other members of the Buddhist pantheon. It is
obvious, of course, that individuals dressed in
the same type of costume are unmistakably
represented as donors bearing offerings in many Gandh?ra reliefs.
Another explanation for the representation of these personages in the crown and jewels of a maharaja is that some of them, at least, are
representations of S?kyamuni as a Bodhisattva.
Siddh?rtha, the prince, was a member of the
Kshatriya clan of the S?kyas, and until the mo ment of his Enlightenment had before him the career of a cakravartin. It might be possible, of
course, to identify all the figures wearing turban and jewels and no other recognizable attributes as Siddh?rtha. To this interpretation, of course,
may be added the suggestion advanced by
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Coomaraswamy that noble donors in Gandh?ra
may have had themselves represented as the
Bodhisattva Siddh?rtha, just as the Khmer rulers of Cambodia were often represented in the guise of Buddha, Siva, or Vishnu. Some of the figures, like the first example from the Toronto Mu
seum (Fig. 13) are just as certainly representa tions of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, who enjoyed a considerable cult in these regions, as attested
by the mentions by Fa Hsien and Hsiian Tsang.23
There is also the question of the occasional
Gandh?ra figures with miniature Buddha images in their crowns. Although the leading authority on the study of Avalokitesvara, Mlle. Marie
Th?r?se de Mallmann, has tentatively identified a number of heads and complete figures with
Buddhas in the turban as portrayals of the great
Bodhisattva, it is not at all sure that this identifi
cation is acceptable.24 Although the Amit?yus sutra with the earliest mention of Avalokitesvara
dates from the 2nd century A.D., the earliest
description of the Bodhisattva is not found until the 5th-century version of this sutra by Ka
layasas. Insofar as we know, the dhy?ni Buddhas are completely unknown in Gandh?ra, and so
the heads and isolated statues with Buddhas in their turbans may in reality be portrayals of lay
personages expressing their allegiance to Buddha
by wearing his likeness in their crowns. It is per
fectly obvious, of course, that this type was
adopted in later Mah?y?na Buddhist art in India to represent Avalokitesvara with Buddha Ami
t?bha in his diadem.
An image which has a bearing on this prob lem is another figure in the Toronto Museum,
which I once published in connection with a
wall-painting of a solar divinity at B?miy?n, the
identification of this image as a Bodhisattva now
seems to me decidedly unlikely.25 Nowhere in
later Mah?y?na iconography do we find a Bodhi sattva image with the attribute of a solar quad
riga in the crown. It seems much more likely that, following the western Asiatic parallels, this
is a representation of a donor with the object of
his personal worship in his crown, in this in
stance, the Buddha transfigured as Sun god.
It is difficult to know whether to call these Gandh?ra images likenesses in the true sense of
the word. It would be more accurate, perhaps to
describe them as transfigured likenesses, since
the actual appearance is coerced into the mould
of the godlike mien of Apollo to show that this
is a divine prince who, even though human, is
himself an incarnation of Buddha or the Sun god.
In the same way, as has been mentioned above, in Cambodia the portraits of living kings were
shown in the guise of Buddha or Siva or Vishnu, and the actual features of the man were subordi
nated to the completely ideal and abstract mass
of the divinity. Because of this imposed idealiza tion in Gandh?ra it was only a step to adapt these portraits of royal donors to representations of Buddha as a Prince and, ultimately, into the
images of the mythical Bodhisattvas. In this
transformed aspect the Gandh?ra royal statues
came to affect the art of all eastern Asia.
NOTES
1. A. Foucher, L'Art Gr?co-bouddhique du Gandh?ra, II, Paris,
1918, p. 211, n.l; A. Gr?nwedel, Buddhist Art in India, Lon
don, 1901, p. 182; A. K. Coomaraswamy, "The Origin of the
Buddha Image," The Art Bulletin, IX, 4, June, 1927, p. 309. 2. S. Beal, Budhist Records of the Western World, London,
1906, I, p. lxxviii.
3. Foucher, II, pp. 179-181; Beal, II, p. 75. 4. C Cecchelli, // Campidoglio, Rome, 1925, pi. 63. 5. Sir John Marshall, Taxila, III, Cambridge, 1951, pi. 18,
a-no. 18. 6. A. Maiuri, La Villa dei Misteri, I, Rome, 1931, p. 223; F. Poul
sen, Greek and Roman Sculpture in English Country Houses,
Oxford, 1923, p. 53, fig. 34. 7. H. B. Walters, The Art of the Romans, New York, 1911,
pi. XVI. 8. Marshall, III, pi. 191, h-no. 59, a-f.
9- A. Goldschmidt, Gotische Madonnenstatuen in Deutschland,
Augsburg, 1923, pi. 39. 10. M. Millard, Andrea Mantegna as Illuminator, Columbia Uni
versity, New York, 1957, fig. 20. 11. W. Worringer, Griechentum und Gotik, Munich, 1928, fig.
71,75. 12. Worringer, fig. 74. 13. S. Mizuno, Bronze and Stone Sculpture of China, Tokyo, I960,
p. 11, pis. 6, 7, 86, 87 a and b. 14. Marshall, III, pi. 190, 191, 196. 15. L. A. Waddell, "The 'Dharani' Cult in Buddhism," Ostasia
tische Zeitschrift, I, 1912-13, pp. 158-159. 16. Waddell, p. 159, fig. 2; for the Taxila amulet boxes, see
Marshall, III, pi. 191, h-no. 59, a-f. 17. B. Rowland, The Art and Architecture of India, Pelican His
tory of Art, II, Harmondsworth, 1956, pi. 43, 44. 18. Cf. Illustrated London News, Dec. 18, 1954, p. 1116, fig. 3.
19. Foucher, II, figs. 320, 398, 399; Marshall, III, pi. 191. 20. M. T. de Mallmann, "Introduction a l'?tude d'Avalokitesvara,"
Annales du Mus?e Guimet, 57, 1948, p. 126; H. Ingholt, "Palmyrene Sculpture in Beirut," Berytus, I (1934), p. 34. It is suggested here that the personages with figured medal lions in their crowns are priests of Bel or attached to ancestral
cults. 21. Cf. L. Robert, Bulletin de Correspondence Hell?nique, LIV,
1930, p. 264, n. 6. 22. Robert, p. 266; F. Bruckmann, Denkm?ler griechischer und
r?mischer Sculptur, 105, 106; A. Hekler, Greek and Roman
Portraits, London, 1912, pi. 124b.
23. The images of Maitreya Bodhisattva may be recognized by the
stupa and the crown, by the vitarka or dharmacakra mudra, by the chignon or krobilos, the distinctive hairdressing of a
Brahmin, and by the kundika or water-bottle, which again refers to the anticipated birth of the future Buddha into a
Brahmin household (Beal, II, p. 47: "In future years when this country of Jambudvipa shall be at peace and rest, and the age of men shall amount to 80,000 years, there shall be a
Brahmin called Maitreya.") 24. de Mallmann, op. cit., pp. 121, 125. 25. B. Rowland, "Buddha and the Sun God," Zdmoxis, I, 1938,
pi. VII.
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