A rare carved stone pedestal India, Bihar, Pala period (8th-12th century), 10th-11th century | 印度 比哈爾邦 帕拉時期 十至十一世紀 石雕須彌座

Buddha is depicted standing within a niche wearing a long diaphanous robe and with his right hand lowered in varada mudra, the gesture of charity and bestowal of blessings, with the ye dharma Buddhist creed inscribed in Sanskrit on the tiered pedestal above: cf. an inscribed Pala stone frieze with seated Buddhas in the Norton Simon Museum, see Pratapaditya Pal, Art from the Indian Subcontinent, New Haven and London, 2003, Vol. I, p. 177, cat. 137. Like the Norton Simon frieze, which Pal compares with a similar fragment found at Nalanda, ibid, the niche is formed of pillars supported by auspicious water vessels, kalasha, with a trilobate arch above. Another fragment from the same period and region, depicting a seated Buddha in similar style, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, ac. no. 1997.138