Offering of a Handful of Dust and First Sermon

This broken relief consists of two scenes, the Offering of a Handful of Dust in the upper register and the Sermon of Benares in the lower register, separated by two cornices, the first with modillions above the second with indented decoration.

The upper register is largely broken on its right side. On the left side is the Buddha, nimbed, with his hand raised in abhayamudrā. He is followed by a shaven monk, dressed in the saṃghāṭi and antaravāsaka. In front of him, a naked child offers a bowl full of dust, which the Blessed One accepts with his left hand. According to the legend, this generous desire to give a gift (a desire since, according to the texts, the little child with nothing to offer picks up some dust) reveals in this infant the future great king Aśoka. A flower (probably a flowering tree) can still be seen above his head. Behind him, another child looks towards the Buddha, his hands in anjalimudrā.

The lower register depicts the First Sermon in the Park of the Gazelles in Benares. The scene is bordered by a large Indo-Corinthian pillar. In the centre, under the branches of a pipal, the nimbed Buddha is seated on a kind of tabouret (decorated with plant motifs?), making the gesture of fearlessness Abhayamudrā. In front of him, at the level of his right knee, the Wheel of the Law, Dharmacakra, is placed on the ground. The Buddha is depicted taller than the five ascetics, former fasting companions of the Bodhisattva and the first converts after his accession to Enlightenment. In the foreground, two of the monks in dhyānamudrā are seated on a plant mat. As in many scenes, the Blessed One's indispensable companion, Vajrapāṇi, completes the cohort in the guise of a beardless young man; a solution often chosen because it allows the symmetry of the composition to be respected, the monks being in odd numbers.

This bas-relief was discovered in the monastery of Chakhil-i Ghoundi, but its exact provenance has been lost.

In the representation of the Dust Offering, it is not the Buddha who occupies the centre of the scene, but the offering bowl. This emphasis on the symbolic object is rare in Buddhist art. We have already seen it at Haḍḍa in the niche representing the Sleep of the Women (HADB no. 56), where it is the headdress that Chandaka holds out to Siddhārtha that occupies the centre of the composition.

Note the simplified composition of the Benares Sermon. The essential characters and symbols are present: the Blessed One, the first five converts and the Wheel of the Law. The Triratna and the gazelles are not represented.

HADB n°56