Last Existence: Predication

Part of a frieze of small stupa depicting scenes from the Last Existence. The recessed base includes a decorated band with a row of pipal leaves between plain fillets, a plain torus, and another plain fillet. The cornice has a row of saw-teeth. On the top of the relief there is, at each end, a socket for cramp, next to the one on the left there is mason mark. The scenes are set between encased pilasters of Gandharan-Corinthian type with a short flute on the shaft. The first scene depicts the Nursling of the Dead Woman. A king buries his young pregnant wife alive, instigated by his senior wives. Because of her and her unborn child’s merit she is able to deliver and nurse the baby for three years inside the tomb. When a wall of the tomb crumbles, the child is set free in the jungle where he lives for three more years until the Buddha meets him and makes him a monk despite his young age. At the centre of the scene the Buddha stands wrapped in his overrobe with the right hand up to hold an unidentified object, and the left down. His hair is parted in the middle with broken waves and separated uṣṇīṣa. To his left stands Vajrapaṇi in a short tunic of exomis type, holding a large hourglass shaped vajra in his right, while the left rests on the hip. He has short hair arranged in curls framing the face. The buddha is in frontal position with the head slightly turned to his right and down to look at a child seated on the ground. The child holds with his right hand the right naked breast of his dead mother, whose rest of the chest is desiccated showing the ribcage; her upper body emerges from the tomb, head down with hair scattered on the floor. The tomb is represented as a brick vault or hut. Behind the child and at the right end of the scene there are two similar trees with upward branches. The next scene depicts the Monkey offering honey. The Buddha meditates in the woods in Vaiśali when a monkey approaches him to offer a bowl of honey. Walking away from the Buddha after this kind gesture, the monkey falls into a pit and drowns. As a reward for its good deeds, the monkey is reborn as a brahmin. The monkey is represented three times. From the right the monkey in upright position walks toward the Buddha holding a bowl of honey. The Buddha sits in the centre of the scene, wrapped in the overrobe with feet covered, the right hand is in abhayamudra, and with the left holds the bowl accepted from the monkey. To the sides of his head there are tree branches. To his right the monkey rejoices in a dance with joined hands on top of the head. Then finally the monkey is seen walking away on the left holding the empty bowl.