Handbook to the sculptures in the Peshawar Museum / by D. Brainerd Spooner.

  • Peshawar Museum
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Handbook to the sculptures in the Peshawar Museum / by D. Brainerd Spooner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of the flesh. But after many enquiries into the various systems of belief then prevailing, and after long trial of the many forms of asceticism common to the Hindus of his time, he abandoned their methods in despair. It was not long after this that the secret of salvation flashed upon him, as he sat in meditation beneath the Bodhi tree at Budh-gaya, and he attained to that enlightenment by virtue of which he ceased to be a Bodhisattva and became a perfect Buddha. Almost immediately after the Enlightenment the Buddha proceeded to Sarnath near Benares, where in the Deer Park of that place he preached his first ser- mon and thus entered on his ministry. This incident is the so-called “Turning of the Wheel of the Law,” and is naturally a very favourite subject for representa- tion among Buddhist artists. With this brief sketch of the early years of the Buddha’s life, I may pass on to those particular legends connected with the great Teacher which are illustrated by sculptures now in the Peshawar Museum. In the following brief list the sculptures illustrative of each legend are mentioned at the head of each paragraph, and conversely the paragraphs themselves are referred to in the body of the Hand-book.