Reconsideration of the Gandharan “Narrative Images of the Buddha's Life”

In Buddhist art there is a genre called “Narrative Images of the Buddha's Life” (Butsu-den-zu in Japanese). This genre has several characteristics: the selection of crucial episodes of his life (the Great Departure, Enlightenment, First Sermon, Death, etc.) from literary sources (chiefly the Vinayas, or the Buddhist disciplinary canons) and the depiction of them in chronological order.Despite a long and general acceptance of the existence of this genre in Gandharan art, an example remains to be attested. The 13 reliefs, each depicting a scene from the Buddha's life, which encircle the drum of the so-called Sikri Stupa have been cited as an exemplar of Gandharan Butsu-den-zu. However, none of the crucial episodes is included among the 13 scenes, and the in situ sequence the excavator found them is far from being the chronological order. That the stupa —actually an altar rather than a stupa— was found housed in a shrine supplies the basis for my interpretation. According to G. Schopen, the conduct of a Gandharan monastery was an interdependent relationship between lay donors, monks and a monastic order, centering around a relic shrine which had been taken as the Buddha himself to whom a Vinaya had given, in Schopen's words, a juristic personality.When we consider the 13 scenes as a composite of three arcs of the circular sequence, we realize that each arc has its own theme: the importance of donations to the Buddha and the celebration of donors, the figures of Sakyamuni before he attained the Buddhahood as the prototype of the bodhisattvas or monks to come, and the instructions of the Law and the monastic order as the only place the Law can be found. These are exactly the three elements of the relationship mentioned above.Just as Sikri is not exceptional among Gandharan monasteries, neither is Gandhara exceptional in ancient India. Therefore, we are not likely to find Butsu-den-zu from around the time of Gandharan art at other early Indian sites either

Archaeology · Art · Buddhism · Depiction · Enlightenment · Gautama Buddha · Literature · Narrative · Order (exchange) · Theme (computing) · Theology · Chinese history and philosophy · Eurasian Exchange Networks · History · Indian and Buddhist Studies · Philosophy

• Being Flanked by Brahmā and Indra

  Open Access•Tianshu Zhu•Religions•2026

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