74.Āyāka cornice with three narrative scenes

  • 3rd century
  • Nagarjunakonda, Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh
  • Archaeological Museum ASI, Nagarjunakonda, Andhra Pradesh

By the third century CE, offering platforms (āyākas) had become major locations for narrative and decorative sculpture at Andhra stūpas. Cornices―the uppermost horizontal element crowning the āyāka―were sculpted from single slabs up to twelve feet in length and divided into narratives separated by pairs of garlanded pilasters between which amorous couples (mithuna) often appear. Three such scenes are preserved here, two relating to the lives of past bodhisattvas and one to the Buddha, at center. The latter is a battle scene, likely representing the War of the Relics, in which contending rulers laid claim to the Buddha's corporeal remains, the first and highest relics of Buddhism.