Author: Jessie Pons | AAV 38 (2025) | Pages: 171–220 | https://doi.org/10.60018/AcAsVa.xbmi1252 
Abstract
This paper examines a fragmentary relief from Matkanai (Malakand, Pakistan), housed in the Dir Museum, Chakdara. The relief depicts a solar disk set within a cave, partially obscuring a seated Buddha in padmāsana, whose right knee emerges from behind the disk. While Gandharan art is renowned for its use of “luminous” iconographies, such as nimbuses, full-body halos, and flaming shoulders, this example introduces a new visual grammar. The aim of this paper is to offer an interpretation for this relief and to clarify how light and solar metaphors are encoded in this unusual representation of the Buddha.
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References
Abbreviations
DiGA = Digitization of Gandharan Artefacts Project: A Project for the Preservation and the Study of Gandharan Art from Pakistan, see https://heidicon.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/pool/diga (accessed 18 July 2025).
DMC = Dir Museum in Chakdara.
IsMEO = Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente.
ISMEO = Associazione Internazionale di Studi sul Mediterraneo e l’Oriente.
KPDOAM = Directorate of Archaeology and Museums, Province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
SHT = Sanskrit‑Handschriften aus den Turfanfunden.
Skt. = Sanskrit.
T. = Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō. ed.: Takakusu and Watanabe (1924–1934).
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