Last Existence: Visit of Indra, Buddha and devotees

Part of a relief depicting two separate scenes from the Last Existence. The base consists of a plain fillet, the cornice consists of a plain fillet topped by a bracketed cornice. The extant proper right side is rebated to obtain a joint. On the back run parallel vertical deep chisel marks. The scene on the right represents the Visit of Indra (Indraśailaguhā). The Buddha was meditating in a cave when the god Indra approaches him with the gandharva Pañcasika. The gandharva plays the harp to draw the Buddha’s attention. The latter eventually answers Indra’s questions on the causes of suffering in living beings. Only the upper left part of the cave where the Buddha sat in meditation is preserved. To his left there is the outline of a figure in the fore ground, arguably the gandharva Pañcasika, and a bust in the upper background. Following the gandharva appears Indra with hands joined in adoration. He wears an uttarīya and a paridhāna and a high turban. The next scene depicts Buddha with devotees. In the centre the Buddha sits in padmāsana over a seat covered in grass. The right hand is raised in abhayamudrā, while with the left he holds a hem of the saṃghāti. He is wrapped in the overrobe with covered feet. He has a plain nimbus around the head and the hair is parted in middle with horizontal broken waves and separate uṣṇīṣa. Five devotees, clad in uttarīya and paridhāna and wearing a turban, are depicted, two on the left and three on the right, beside the Buddha. They all have joined hands, with the exception of the first one on the left, next to the Buddha, which holds an oblong object in his hands. In the background on the right next to Buddha’s nimbus emerges Vajrapaṇi. On the left a turbaned figure. Two more heads emerge from the background, one per side, between the devotees. The two scenes are separated by a pilaster of the Gandharan-Corinthian type with a Buddha on the shaft. The buddha is sitting in dhyānamudrā and padmāsana over an open lotus with reverse petals. He is wrapped in the saṃghāti with covered hands and feet.