Gandhara region
Second to fourth century CE
Schist; 22.2 x 32.0 x 7.3 cm
(8-3/4 x 12-5/8 x 2-15/16 in.)
Ackland Fund, 87.52
Provenance: Acquired 17 November 1987 from Spink & Son Ltd., London.

This relief probably adorned a small stupa. In Gandhara, smaller stupas often surrounded the main stupa housing Buddhist relics, or were located in separate courtyards. These secondary stupas usually honored deceased monks or were votive in function. Such secondary stupas typically had a rectangular base (medhi) supporting a drum or cylinder and dome (anda) topped by a square (harmika). A pole (yasti) and parasols (chhatra) of diminishing size emerged from the top, marking the axis of the stupa and the location of its relics (Fig. 24).1 The framing pilasters of the Ackland’s piece, carved not only on the sides, but also partially on the back, likely framed scenes that adjoined perpendicularly. Along with the manner of the columns’ articulation, the square composition suggests that this relief likely functioned as one face of a harmika.2

The harmika may have evolved from the railing that surrounded sacred trees, free-standing pillars, burial mounds, and other sacred sites in pre-Buddhist times (Figs. 25, 26, 27).3 The sacred axis created by the parasols framed by the harmika is conceived as the center of the world, the hub of the cosmic wheel, where the Buddha attained enlightenment, and where he eternally reveals his teachings. Over time, the free-standing fence developed into a solid cube; but the harmika continued to enclose and demarcate a sacred space symbolically. Its four faces received sculptural decoration, frequently narrative scenes, one facing each direction. Sculpture adorning harmikas often show important narratives from the life of the Buddha: birth, great departure, attack of Mara, enlightenment, first sermon, death, cremation, and the display of relics.4

The Ackland’s harmika fragment is adorned with four venerating figures in monastic garb, who provide a model for devotional behavior. They focus attentively on a sixteen-spoked wheel (chakra), which rests on a low pedestal and upholds a three-branched object usually identified as the triratna, a symbolic representation of the three jewels in which adherents of Buddhism take refuge: the Buddha, the doctrine (dharma), and the community (sangha). The wheel, with no beginning or end point, refers to the Buddhist teachings which, like the circular form, are believed to be eternal. Flanking the wheel are two badly damaged animals, likely deer, and if so, a reference to the Deer Park at Sarnath where the Buddha delivered his first sermon, setting the wheel of Buddhist law into motion.5 While alluding to the first sermon, the inclined heads of the four monks may indicate their acceptance of the three jewels.6 LJT

1 W. Zwalf, A Catalogue of the Gandhara Sculpture in the British Museum (London: British Museum Press, 1996), 36; Kurt Behrendt, The Buddhist Architecture of Gandhara (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 28.
2 Kurt Behrendt, oral communication, 10/02/2001. See also Behrendt’s description of a harmika’s characteristics in The Buddhist Architecture of Gandhara, 134 f.n. 63.
3 On the symbolism of the stupa complex and its history, see The Stupa: Sacred Symbol of Enlightenment, ed. Elizabeth Cook (Berkeley: Dharma Publishing, 1997); and Behrendt, The Buddhist Architecture of Gandhara. Adrian Snodgrass, The Symbolism of the Stupa (Ithaca: Cornell Southeast Asia Program, 1985), 246–73, further traces the symbolic and architectural origins of the harmika, including its relation to Vedic high altars, the amalaka of Hindu temples, and the Buddha’s throne at the foot of the Tree of Enlightenment.
4 Vidya Dehejia, Discourse in Early Buddhist Art: Visual Narratives of India (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1997), 186, 310 n24; Kurt Behrendt, The Buddhist Architecture of Gandhara, 123, 213. A complete harmika block in the Victoria and Albert Museum also depicts the worship of the triratna adjoined by a scene with the anthropomorphic Buddha. See Victoria and Albert Museum, inventory number I.M. 111–1939; gray schist, 21.5 x 30.5 cm each side from the Swat Valley (Gumbat), reproduced in Hans Christoph Ackermann, Narrative Stone Reliefs from Gandhara in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (Rome: Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1975), plates XXII, XXIII. For additional harmika examples, see Kurt Behrendt, The Buddhist Architecture of Gandhara, figs. 8, 87, 95.
5 Zwalf suggests that the presence of deer is often used to distinguish triratna scenes as symbolizing the first sermon; when they are absent, the symbol typically represents a cult object, 184. For example, a panel very similar to the Ackland’s, showing a wheel on a pedestal and upholding the three-pronged motif surrounded by four monks, but no deer, has been identified as a worship scene of the three jewels. See M. Ashraf Khan, Gandhara Sculptures in the Swat Museum (Swat: Archaeological Museum, 1993), 55.
6 The Buddha is said to have delivered the First Sermon to five monks, and many scenes identified as depicting the specific historical event are careful to include that number. For examples, see Ingholt, figs. 76, 79; Joshi and Sharma, figs. 14, 15; Zwalf, fig. 202.