Siddhārtha and Kanthaka

This is a fragmentary relief. A child dressed in a paridhāna and wearing the uṣnīṣa bun kisses and caresses the neck of a horse, saddled and harnessed. Dagens had proposed several interpretations (Dagens, 1964: 17). It could be the farewell of the young prince Siddhārtha to his faithful Kanthaka; but usually the future Buddha is depicted as an adult during this event and the scene frequently shows him on his knees, broken by emotion. This could also be a slightly earlier episode mentioned in the Buddha-Carita. The account records that shortly before the Great Departure, Chandaka prepares and saddles Kanthaka at the request of his master. Then "the broad-breasted hero kisses and caresses the best of the steeds with his hand like a lotus" and rides him one last time. In this hypothesis, it is the near-nudity of Siddhārtha that poses a difficulty. However, it is known that artists sometimes took some liberties with the text, if they felt that the aesthetic or symbolic rendering lent itself to it. On this relief, the future Buddha is represented as a very young child, still very small, smaller than his horse. We see more of a scene relating to the simultaneous births of Siddhārtha with "five hundred" squires, including Chandaka the first, and "five hundred" foals, including Kanthaka the first. Does this relief depict their first meeting or their first ride, with Kanthaka in harness?

The schist reliefs discovered by Barthoux between 1926 and 1928 are mostly from the vicinity of the Great Stūpa K1 of Tapa-i Kafarihā, the south-western part of the main stūpa B12 of Bāgh Gaï (around B13) and the Great Stūpa TK140 of Tapa Kalān.