Schist Bodhisattva Head

This Bodhisattva head was acquired by the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) in 2006 as part of the strategy to represent important historical and regional styles in South Asian art. The head sculpted from grey schist and measures XXX , and it was said to be from Peshawar to date to around the 4th- 5th century CE. However, there is some uncertainty about the provenance of this piece. The NGA was one of many institutions who bought objects from the now convicted art smuggler Subhas Kapoor, and the piece was supposedly held in a private collection of an acquaintance of Kapoor who herself was convicted for falsifying letters of provenance. In 2021 the National Gallery deaccessioned the Bodhisattva head from its collection and on 22 August 2022 it was handed over to Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri, High Commissioner for the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, and repatriated to Pakistan.

The Bodhisattva head depicts a bodhisattva wearing an elaborately decorated turban. The identity of the exact Bodhisattva is not clear, but the wearing of a turban is associated with Bodhisattva iconography in Gandharan art (Smith 1990, 106-7, Pal 2006). The eyes of the bodhisattva are half-closed, possibly representing a state of meditation and there is an urṇā on the Bodhisattva’s forehead. An urṇā is a tuft of hair between the eyebrows and one of the auspicious marks of a great man (mahāpuruṣa-lakṣaṇa). In this sculpture there is a round socket where the urṇā should be, which undoubtedly was filled with a semi-precious stone. The Bodhisattva’s hair extends below the sides of the turban forming short sideburns, and the figure lacks ears due to the back of the head being lost.

The central element of this object is the decorative turban worn by the bodhisattva. The lower band of the turban has a central stone or jewel that appears woven into the fabric. Square stones also decorate this lower band. The top of the turban has a fantail decorative motif with a lion holding a garland of beads in its teeth. On both sides of the turban are winged lions, the faces, manes, wings and paws are elegantly carved. There appears to be an upper band of the turban that contains more decorative elements, lines of stone with a central studded ornament. On the left side to the turban is a side knot. What appears to be the bodhisattva’s wavy hair can be seen above the turban, however this wavy design could also represent a diadem.

The features of the lion holding a garland of beads and the winged lions appear in other turbans from Buddhist pieces from Gandhara. In her dissertation Bodhisattva Headdresses and Hair Styles in the Buddhist Art of Gandhāra and Related Regions of Swāt and Afghanistan (1990), Carolyn Schmidt catalogues over three-hundred Bodhisattvas sculptures and divides these into seven styles falling in three phases. The fantail with the lion holding a garland of beads and winged lions appears in her Styles IV and V that correlate with the middle and later Kuṣāṇa periods of the third to forth centuries (Schmidt 1990, 169-80, 190-96, and 204-5). The turban types and approximate dates determined by Smith align with the probable dating of this piece.

This Bodhisattva head, now returned to Pakistan, exemplifies the detailed turbans produced in Gandhāra. Statues in other museum collections contain similar elements to this piece, such as a lion fantail in the British Museum (OA 1902.5-20.4; Zwalf 1996, 112) and winged lions on the side of the turban on a Shakyamuni statue in The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (1987.218.10). However, the clarity of these elements along with the carving of the turban bands and embedded stones and jewels make this Bodhisattva head an important example of Gandharan art.

Bibliography

• Anwar, Samia. 2020. “Themes, images and symbols depicted on Turbans in Gandhara Art: An Appraisal.” Sindh Antiquities 6.1, pp. 145-55.
• Pal, Pratapaditya. 2006. “Reflections on the Gandhāra Bodhisattva Images.” Bulletin of the Asia Institute 20, pp. 101-115.
• Schmidt, Carolyn. 1990. “Bodhisattva Headdresses and Hair Styles in the Buddhist Art of Gandhāra and Related Regions of Swat and Afghanistan. PhD diss. The Ohio State University.
• Zwalf, W. 1996. A Catalogue of the Gandhāra Sculpture in the British Museum. London: British Museum Press.