禅定印仏坐像ぜんじょういんぶつざぞう

  • パキスタン ガンダーラ
  • 2-3世紀
  • 片岩
  • H-68 D-23 W-53.4

無装飾の円形の頭光と、波打つような長髪を紐で結って肉けいとし、眉間に小さな突起を刻んで白ごうとしている。口髭をたくわえた面貌は落ちつきがあり、目を半ば閉じて深く内面を見つめている。均衡のとれた体躯に大衣をまとい、両足を隠している。台座正面は両端がアカンサス柱頭で、その間には11体の像を刻んでいる。中央に樹下に菩薩が禅定印を結んで結跏趺坐し、その両脇対称に右手で施無畏印を結び左手を垂下する仏立像、右手を垂下し左手は肩口に挙げて衣端を握る仏立像、右手を肩口に挙げ甲を見せ垂下した左手に水瓶を執る菩薩立像、右手を胸前に構え左手は肩口に挙げて衣端を握る仏立像、合掌する供養者立像であることが分かる。これら9体の像は弥勒菩薩の左右に仏陀が立つ3組の三尊像と見ることが出来、どの様な思想背景があるか興味深いが、このような例は他にないため、意味は未だ不明である。

Catalogue Entry

The Buddha is shown seated cross-legged on a rectangular pedestal with his hands in the position of meditation, or dhyana mudra. This image is particularly well preserved, with the exception of losses on the lower edge of the Buddha's right ear lobe and the tip of the index finger on his right hand. An undecorated, round nimbus appears behind his head, his long wavy hair is bound into an ushnisha form, between his eyebrows is a small projection for the urna, and he has a mustache. The face is characterized by a calm expression, his eyes are half closed, and he looks deeply inward. The body is covered with a robe that drapes across both shoulders and covers both feet. (This type precedes a late-Kushan-period type of seated Buddha image in which the robe is draped across the left shoulder but the right shoulder is left bare, and the majority of which have their hands in a dharmachakra mudra and their feet exposed.*1) The handling of the drapery in this image is somewhat more formalized than on the standing Buddha (cat. no. 72), and this work is thought to be a bit later in date, yet it has a sense of stability and has not lost any of the power of the form. Traces of lime on the image appear to have been a ground for pigment, but unfortunately the statue's original finished beauty is no longer apparent.

Eleven figures are carved on the front of the pedestal and are framed at either end by pilasters topped with acanthus capitals. At the center of the group is a bodhisattva seated beneath a tree with hands in the position of meditation (dhyana mudra). To his proper right are (from proper right to left) a standing Buddha with the right hand raised in the peace-giving gesture (abhaya mudra) and the left hand lowered; a standing Buddha with right hand pendant, and left hand raised to shoulder height and grasping the edge of the robe; a standing bodhisattva with right hand raised to shoulder height and palm facing forward, left hand lowered and holding a water vase; a standing Buddha with his right hand in front of chest, left hand raised nearly to shoulder height and grasping the edge of the robe; and a standing attendant figure with hands clasped in prayer. The same figures are repeated on the other side of the seated central bodhisattvas to form a symmetrical pairing with the first-named group. The attendants with hands clasped in prayer on either end might be a couple who donated this image. The bodhisattvas holding water vases are generally considered to be Maitreya when they appear in Gandharan images,*2 and even though the central seated figure does not hold a water vase, there is a strong possibility that he too is a Maitreya. The nine figures arrayed across the pedestal, excluding the flanking attendant figures, could be seen as three triads, with Buddha figures to the left and right of a central Maitreya bodhisattva. The theological background for such a grouping of figures remains a fascinating question; however, as there are no other known examples of a grouping of three triads like this, the meaning of this array of figures remains unclear. TK

1 Ingholt, 1957., figs. 245-261.
2 Takata 1979, pp. 11-30, espacially p. 14.