1898.] T. Bloch — Buddhistic statue from Qravasti. 283 
ordinary Buddha statue of about the same time or even later. With 
respect to the fravasti Image, we must leave off this point at all, as 
the head unfortunately is broken. 1 But the point, on which both the 
Gaya and pravasti image are alike to each other, while they differ 
from any ordinary Buddha statue, is the shape in which the garment 
is laid round the body, leaving naked in both the right shoulder. The 
ordinary type of Buddha represents the teacher dressed in the samghdti 
that large vestment which covers the whole body of a Buddhist monk, 
reaching to the ankles and leaving bare only the neck and the shaved 
head. It looks, indeed, very much so as if Buddhist artists in trying 
to revive the figure of their divine Lord in painting or in stone, did not 
imitate any other type among the Hindu Pantheon, but tried to depict 
the Lord so as the pious mind believed him to have been, and the 
model from which the first statues of Buddha were made, was the appear¬ 
ance of an ordinary Bhiksu, just as the Jainas made the images of 
their Tirthamkaras look like an ordinary Yati. If General Cunningham, 
therefore, with respect to the fkavasti statue says that “ the right 
shoulder is bare as in all Buddhist figures ” (Arch. Surv. Rep., Yol. I, 
p. 339), this is decidedly wrong. The evidence adduced above rather 
leads us to believe that wherever we. find a Buddhist statue which has the 
right shoulder bare, this is to be taken as a sign that the statue represents 
not a Buddha , but a Bodliisattva . 2 
It is not my intention here to press this argument. The evidence, 
I admit, is but scanty, and the subject is one which still labours under 
great difficulties. I merely want to point, in connexion herewith, to 
two other facts which tend to corroborate the result thus arrived 
at. The first point is taken from the Gandhara sculptures. Here 
the type with the right shoulder bare, occurs only in connection with 
a particular position of the hands which is generally described as 
1 I know of one more Buddha statue of very much the same style as the 
QravastI Image. It is only the upper part of the statue, shown on a photograph in 
the Indian Museum together with the statue described in A. S. R. X, 5, which Dr. 
Fiihrer in his List wrongly calls an image of Agvaghosa, but which really seems to 
be an image of a Nagaraja. Here the head is preserved ; it is without any ornament 
or dress, the hair represented in the same conventional way as in the Mankuar Image 
where Mr. Fleet erroneously speaks of “ a close fitting cap.” The usmsa or * skull- 
born ’ is also seen on this fragment. The vestment is very much like the QravastI 
Image. 
2 There is, of course, one more point in the shape of the dress of this statue 
which is against the ordinary fashion of Buddha images, viz., the girdle round the 
waist. The vestment of the QravastI image is decidedly not the samghdti, while 
those from Gandhara and Bihar, referred to further on, appear to be clad in this 
garment. 
