In the Peshwar Valley and Swat Valley, currently in northern Pakistan and Afghanistan, an Indo-Aryan civilisation emerged in the 550s BC. Named for the Gandhari tribe, the Gandharans were at the centre of the Eurasian world, straddling east and west. Strategically important, it became a prized possession of conquerors like Xerxes and Alexander the Great. Its time as a Greek possession left an indelible cultural mark. So, too, did the advance of Buddhism, imposed on the region by the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka, which became akin to a state religion in Gandhara. The subsequent Indo-Greek Kingdom, of which Gandhara was the central part, further developed Graeco-Buddhism. The resulting artistic forms are idealistic and sensuous, like their Hellenistic forebears, but depicting Buddhist themes. Individual elements of Hellenistic art, like the heroic nude, were gradually phased out, and over time a distinctiveness crept into Gandharan art, which achieves its own zenith from the Third to the Fifth Centuries AD.

One of the distinctive art-forms of the Gandharan period are heavily populated panels, usually made from schist, depicting scenes from the life of the Buddha, or other appropriately Buddhist themes. The panels are often narrative, and can be read from right to left, following the traditional clockwise circumambulation route at holy sites. This schist panel depicts the Buddha in the centre, enthroned on a lotus blossom. He wears the sanghati, a monastic robe which covers one shoulder, leaving the other bare. He is depicted with the ushnisha cranial bump (depicted as a topknot, kapardin), a symbol of his divine wisdom, and his hands are in the vitarka mudra, one resting in his lap, the other raised. The raised hand is damaged, but if it were complete, it would show the Buddha touching the tips of his index finger and thumb, with his other three fingers pointed upwards. This mudra (sacred hand gesture) represents the discussion and transmission of teachings, and the flow of energy between the sage and his disciples. This indicates the subject of the panel: the Buddha is teaching his disciples, who are gathered around him. Above the Buddha’s head are lotus flowers arranged in an arch; arches in Gandharan art often indicate the focus of attention in the piece.

Around the Buddha are twenty attendants arranged in two registers of ten. They are depicted in a range of poses, some lounging with their legs crossed, some crouching on the ground, and some seated on lotus thrones. Those seated on lotus thrones must be bodhisattvas, though it is difficult to associate these figures with specific individuals. Two, however, can be easily identified. Depicted larger than the other figures, and seated to the Buddha’s right, are bodhisattvas distinguished by halos (pabha). These must be the Buddha’s two key attendants: Avalokitesvara, the bodhisattva of extraordinary compassion, and Maitreya, the Buddha of the future who will be born again when the teachings of the present Buddha, Gautama, are forgotten. They would usually be distinguished by their unique headgear – a seated Buddha and a stupa respectively – but in this small depiction, these symbols are dispensed with.