2-740-117 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Section of a Coping Rail, c. 150 BC. The stupa at Bharhut is one of the earliest monuments in India to have a fully embellished railing carved with a variety of imagery pertaining to life and prosperity. Many reliefs on the coping stone depict scenes from the past lives of the Buddha. These two vignettes may be examples, but they remain unidentified, because the portion where label inscriptions would have been carved has broken away. The scenes are carved in spaces created by an undulating lotus rhizome from which jewelry sprouts instead of lotus flowers. In several of the stories of the Buddha's past life, he was born as a Brahmin, or member of the Hindu priest class. The figure on the right with the matted dreadlocks piled on his head is a Brahmin ascetic seated in front of his hut holding a ladle and tending a fire. Fire sacrifices were central to the activities of Brahmins as a means of communicating with the gods.