The birth of the Buddha-to-be

Seven Scenes from the Life of the Buddha

Relief sculptures like these would have been placed on the exteriors of Buddhist stupas. Presumably, worshipers would have looked at each scene in turn and recalled the episodes of the pious story.

The relief sculptures you see here and on the four-sided architectural element to your left, all about eighteen hundred years old, were made in the ancient region of Gandhara in what is now Pakistan. They came from different sites and do not form a set. Many scenes from the Buddha’s life were depicted in early Buddhist art, and in the group shown here a number of scenes are missing.

Nevertheless, this group of reliefs, together with their labels (which quote ancient retellings of the Buddha’s life story), gives a hint of how that story was understood by early Buddhists.

Unless otherwise credited, the quotes are adapted from Henry Clark Warren’s 1896 translation of an ancient Buddhist text.