About One Relief from Gandhara
Mkrtychev T. K.
The article introduces a high relief from Gandhara from a private collection. The relief has a form of false pediment with three scenes: gods entreating Buddha to begin to preach; monks worshipping an turban set upon a throne; Buddha tempted by the host of Mara (the monsters' fragmented heads are still to be seen). The pediment imitates a cross-section of a three-nave caitya, thus showing us the interior of a temple: a large hall with central vault and two side- chapels covered with semi-vaults. False pediments were used to decorate stupas. Besides, stelae in the form of false pedi- ments were objects of worship. In Gandharan art the top of a false pediment (three-vane arch) became an independent compositional element framing various figures. Gandhara reliefs make it possible to suppose that there existed reliquaries in the shape of three-vane arch. The iconographical analysis of the scenes reveals some analogies, which allows the au- thors to suppose that the relief was made in Baner (in the north-eastern part of Gandhara) in the 2nd half of the 1st or in the early 2nd century AD. Frequent occurrence of some small details seen in Buddha's image in a scene depicted on the pediment makes the author suppose that the central figures were made in accordance with regional iconographic models used by sculptors to produce various compositions. The materi- als at our disposal can be used to prove that these models were probably exported from one region to another (Baner - Bactria).