This highly attractive and sizable sculpture is a superlative example of the Gandharan style of art that flourished in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent from roughly the 1st through the 5th centuries of the Common Era. The region of Gandhara, which comprised parts of modern day Pakistan and Afghanistan, was strategically located at the hub of the ancient Silk Routes that crisscrossed the Asian landmass and was an area of prime military and commercial significance in antiquity. The region was particularly influenced by Hellenistic culture resulting from the military campaign of Alexander the Great in the 4th century B.C.E. The legacy of Hellenism that he left in his wake was integrated with local traditions creating a multi-cultural lexicon out of which was born the Gandharan School of art, a unique amalgam of East and West. Gandharan sculptures, as seen in the present lot, are executed in a strongly 'Classical' Greco-Roman style that was applied to a purely Buddhist and Indic iconography.

The hybrid character of Gandharan art found powerful expression in Buddhism, a ‘new’ religion that was founded in northern India towards the end of the first Millennium before the Common Era. The Buddhist creed, which placed emphasis on righteous and moral deeds as the path to salvation, was embraced by the cosmopolitan population of Gandhara under the patronage of successive Indo-Greek rulers. This patronage was continued by the mighty Kushan emperors who oversaw the construction of hundreds of Buddhist temples and monasteries throughout their domain.

By the beginning of the Common Era, two strains or schools of thought had emerged in Buddhism, of which the Mahayana or the Greater Vehicle form was popular in the region. Mahayana ideology advocated the expression of love and devotion to the Buddhist principle as the chief element in the attainment of salvation. The medium through which this possibility of salvation was advanced was the Bodhisattva (translated as Enlightenment Being), a sentient being who is ready to receive Enlightenment but voluntarily postpones his own nirvana to transfer his merit to others so that they may cleanse their souls and achieve salvation. This altruistic deity was thus revered as a repository of benevolence and compassion and his images were created in large numbers by practitioners of the faith.

This elegantly crafted sculpture displays the classic fusion of Indic and Hellenistic artistic traditions that characterized Gandharan art. The bodhisattva’s serene countenance with its contemplative and deeply spiritual expression is masterfully executed. The rich suite of aristocratic accoutrements adorning the deity, known as bodhisattvabharana, enhances the charisma of this already divine being. These precious adornments are endowed with apotropaic qualities to ward off evil, signify prosperity and royalty, and also act as symbols representing the material and spiritual wealth to be gained by lay worshippers. The ends of the bodhisattva’s turban, arranged in the manner of fluttering sashes, are a pure Sassanian royal symbol, repeatedly encountered in sculptures, textiles and seals from that culture, which is known to have been appropriated by the Parthians and later the Kushans, who created their own royal cult using this and other borrowed symbols from preceding dynasties.

Compare the bodhisattva’s perfectly proportioned physique and similar treatment of fluttering turban ends with a sculpture in the collects ion of the Musee Guimet (AO 2907), see Carolyn W. Schmidt, “The Sacred and the Secular: Jewellery in Buddhist Sculpture in the Northern Kushan Realm,” in Susan Strong (ed.), The Jewels of India, Bombay, 1995, cat. 9, p 26. Both images have a confident bearing yet radiate benevolence. Also see F. Tissot, Gandhara, Paris 1985, fig. 177, for a bodhisattva figure in the Peshawar Museum featuring similar treatment of headdress with waving sash ends carved across the halo. Two other youthful bodhisattva sculptures – from a private collects ion and at the Lahore Museum - with similar posture and treatment of loose turban ends are reproduced in Isao Kurita, Gandharan Art II: The World of the Buddha, Tokyo, 2003, figs. 105 & 108, pp 44-45.

With its seamless melding of a plethora of elements drawn from diverse traditions across geographies and centuries, the bodhisattva is a refreshing and unique emblem of an universally accepted ‘international’ style in art during ancient t.mes s.

The figure of the bodhisattva occupies a prime place in Mahayana Buddhist theology. The bodhisattva is believed to be a sentient being who remains on this earth and postpones his own nirvana (release from the cycles of birth and death) to help others achieve salvation. Images of this youthful, altruistic deity – always depicted as a royal personage – were created in large numbers to populate the many Buddhist shrines and altars that were constructed in ancient Gandhara. These regal sculptures display a variety of artistic motifs drawn from the cultures of the cosmopolitan populace that inhabited the region.