Last Existence: Buddha’s death

A rectangular panel representing the Mahāparinirvāṇa. Despite being ill after receiving food offerings, the Buddha continues to travel until he is forced to stop at Kuśīnagara. Here, he announces to his retinue that he will soon pass away. He then enters his final meditation and dies, achieving his final nirvāṇa. The base consists of a plain fillet. On the top face there is a large tenon. At the right end of the relief there are remnants of an encased semi column of Gandharan-Corinthian type. At the center of the scene, Buddha lies in parinirvāṇa arguably wrapped in the same fabric decorated with rows of rosettes separated by a vertical fillet that falls in front of the bed with turned legs. Subhadrā is sitting back-turned in padmāsana on the ground before the bed, next to another figure with a shawl arching over the head. This male figure sits with the right leg bent on the ground, the left knee is up. His left elbow rests on the corresponding knee, the head posed on the hand. The right hand is on the ground holding the weight of the body. The figure is frontal with the head in three quarter right profile. At Buddha’s feet Ānanda is kneeling with joined hands, behind the bed from on the right there is a figure holding a torch (?), two more figures are barely discernible in the background. To the opposite side of the bed there is a standing figure in a long garment.