Early Buddhist Art
Artist: unknown
Title: Great Stupa at Sanchi (Stupa I), north gateway (torana),
east pillar, west face
Material: Stone
Site: Sanchi, India
Current Location: Sanchi, India
Period/Date: Sunga period (ca. 25 C.E.)
Iconography/Iconology: This panel shows pilgrims at a paribhogika
site (location where the Buddha performed an action or taught). The
platform under the mango tree is a place for puja offerings to be
made. The other mango tree (lower left foreground) and the elaborately dressed
women in front of the platform suggests that this may be the mango grove
at Vaisali, where the Buddha frequently taught.
Stylistic Comments: The panel is essentially a circular composition
of human figures focusing their attention on the platform under the tree.
The other plants form a kind of "reinforcing" circle, placing
great emphasis on the offering platform, itself. While there is no clear
dividing of the composition into registers, the recession is created in
the groundplan, and not by a decrease of size in the background. This gives
the composition a flat, or "compressed" feeling.
