Last Existence: Conversion of Apalāla

A relief depicting the conversion of Apalāla. Furious for not receiving proper offerings from the local community, threatens to cause disastrous floods in the valley. The Buddha and Vajrapāṇi, while traveling to promulgate the Doctrine, seek to help the people and subdue the vicious nāga. Vajrapāṇi destroys the mountain where Apalāla and his family reside, and the nāga, now frightened, listens to the Buddha’s words and eventually converts to the Dharma.   The scene is encased between two framed semi-columns of the Gandharan-Persepolitan type with capital carved with back-to-back bulls. The base is plain, the cornice is decorated with a row of saw-teeth. Tool marks are found on the back and top face. On this latter side, a Kharoṣṭhī mark is seen on the extreme right. The Buddha is standing in the left three-quarter view and turning to the nāga couple. His right hand is in abhayamudrā, his left is holding an edge of the overrobe. He has a plain nimbus. On the left are Apalāla and his wife emerging in bust from a pond not carved. They both have joined hands. Apalāla is wearing a skull-cap turban with zones, a high fantail, and possibly a diadem. His wife has hair stylized in a curly fringe with a knot. On the proper left of the Buddha is Vajrapāṇi, standing frontally and holding the vajra in the right hand, while the left is on the hip. He is dressed in a short tunic of the exomis type with eyeleted hem. The Buddha’s attendant is depicted again on the left upper part of the scene, above the nāga couple as he strikes the rocky shore of their pond. He is shown emerging from rocks and grabbing the vajra in his right hand. On the right are two male devotees standing in the left three-quarter view. Both have joined hands and wear a paridhāna and an uttarīya, and a turban.