Last Existence: Princely Life

A panel with two registers separated by a straight festoon of lanceolate leaves. The base is a plain fillet, and the cornice is a row of upright ogival leaves. There are large vertical tool marks on the back. The bottom register depicts scenes from the last existence separated by encased semi-columns of Gandharan-Corinthian type. The narrative scenes depicted on the lower register belong to the Story of the Dead Elephant. When competitions to win Yaśodharā over were about to start, the jealous cousin Devadatta killed the large white elephant brought into city for the Bodhisattva to ride. Sundarananda moved the carcass outside the city door, but the Bodhisattva intervened with his extraordinary strength to throw it far away from the city and avoid the miasma of the decomposing animal to affect the population. The first scene represents the Bodhisattva throwing the dead elephant away from the city walls. Of this fragmentary scene only remains a part of a standing figure holding an elephant on the shoulders. The figure wears a turban and probably an anklet on the remaining foot. The elephant’s head is shown in left profile. The next figurative field depicts the city walls of Kapilavastu. Rectangular loopholes are visible on both sides of the gate. The last scene depicts two horsemen. They both wear a turban and large globular earrings. The scene probably depicts the crowd coming from Kapilavastu to reach the place where, according to some sources as the Lalitavistara, competitions in the arts between the Bodhisattva and other Śākya boys were to take place. The Bodhisattva competes in scripture and mathematics to prove his worth and win the young Yaśodharā over. He succeeds in every challenge in front of famous wise men. The upper register of the panel depicts a row round arches, in the hollows between the arches is depicted a trifid leaf. Under the arches are depicted busts in three quarter profile, they all hold an oblong object in their hands, probably a palm leaf.