Last Existence: The Bodhisattva watching sleeping women

Part of a relief frieze depicting two scenes from the Life in the Palace – that on the left is broken. The base consists of a projecting plain band. The scenes are separated by a pilaster of the Gandharan-Corinthian type with a short flute featuring a concave lower bevelled end. A Kharoṣṭhī mason-mark is carved over the projecting plain band on the right-proper side of the relief. The back face shows vertical marks of chisel. The right scene depicts the Great Renunciation. When his father Śuddhodana opposed his resolve to leave the palace, the Bodhisattva returns to his apartments where beautiful women await to entertain him. As they succumb to sleep, he is disgusted by the view of their distorted bodies. Siddhārtha is sitting on a bed featuring a mattress and a drape on the front. His feet rest on a legged footstool. The right hand is in abhayamudrā, the left is lying on the leg. He wears a paridhāna, an uttarīya, and wristlets with raised edges. Behind him, Yaśodharā is sleeping on her right side on the bed. Only the outline of the figure is preserved. Three female figures are sitting asleep on the floor, two on the left side of Siddhārtha, one on his right side. The first is depicted back turned and resting against a cushion decorated with a vertical band of square panels. The left leg is bent up, the left hand is raised over the bed. She wears a tunic, a large wreath, and a wristlet with raised edge. The second figure is shown in right profile, the left leg is bent, the right is extending. The right arm is resting on the knee, the left is holding a horizontal arched harp. She is dressed in a dhotī and a sleeved tunic, her head is crowned with a large wreath. The third and last figure is seating frontal on her knees over a cushion, the right hand is resting on a barrel drum with oblique crossed straps, the left is lying free. She wears a sleeved long tunic and a large wreath. Two female figures are standing cross-legged on both sides of the bed. The figure on the right is frontal and wears a dhotī. The figure on the left is back-turned and is holding a jug in her right hand. She wears a dhotī, a sleeved bodice, and pairs of anklets of the basic type. The scene on the left preserves only a female figure, possibly Yaśodharā. She is sitting, her right hand is raised up, the left is resting on the legs. She is dressed in a long-sleeved tunic spreading at her feet and a mantle.