![Buddha Shakyamuni Meditating in the Indrashala Cave [top] and Buddha Dipankara [bottom], by Pakistan, 2nd/3rd century](https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/3ce47e30-f25e-24b5-51ba-5e355d10107e/full/!1600,1600/0/default.jpg)
Buddha Shakyamuni Meditating in the Indrashala Cave [top] and Buddha Dipankara [bottom]
Pakistan (Ancient region of Gandhara)
2nd/3rd century
- Medium
- Schist
- Classification
- Sculpture
- Dimensions
- 60 × 37.1 × 7.3 cm (23 5/8 × 14 5/8 × 2 7/8 in.)
- Culture
- Gandhara
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of Asia
- Credit line
- Gift of Marilynn B. Alsdorf
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
The upper register of this narrative frieze depicts the historical Buddha Shakyamuni serenely seated in meditation in the Indrashala cave. When Indra, the king of the gods, visits him there, the Buddha delivers a sermon that converts him to Buddhism, while acolytes fold their hands in veneration. The lower panel portrays the story of Sumati from the Dipankara jataka, a tale of one of the Buddha’s former lives. Sumati, a wealthy Brahmin turned renunciant, lies face down spreading his matted hair out across a puddle so that the Buddha Dipankara would not have to soil his feet. Dipankara subsequently prophesies Sumati’s rebirth as the future Buddha Shakyamuni.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
