A New Look at the 'Muhammad Nari Stele' and Other ‘Complex Stelae’ from Gandhāra

BUDDHIST STUDIES FORUM

SPEAKER: Dessislava Vendova, MFA Boston

The so-called ‘Muhammad Nari Stele,’ one of the most famous Buddhist artifacts from Gandhāra, has long been the subject of scholarly disagreement. This richly and elaborately carved “complex stele” has long puzzled art historians and Buddhologists ever since its discovery in what is today Pakistan’s Peshawar region. Scholars have unsuccessfully tried to match it to various textual sources, but the mystery of what and who is represented in the stele is still an unanswered riddle.

The earliest long-held identification has been that it depicts Shakyamuni Buddha’s Great Miracle at Śrāvastī, an interpretation first put forward by Alfred Foucher more than a hundred years ago. This reading however has been challenged in the past few decades, and among the newer interpretations is that the scene depicted is of a Mahāyāna Buddhist paradise such as Amitābha’s Sukhāvatī, etc. Various texts, the majority of them belonging to the Mahāyāna tradition, have been proposed as the sources for this and similar “complex stelae,” an interpretation which if true would provide important evidence of a Mahāyāna substantial influence on Buddhist worship and image practices in Gandhāra.

With my talk, I suggest a new answer to the riddle of the “Muhammad Nari Stele” and propose a textual match for its narrative program and that of other “complex stelae.” These findings demonstrate that the Gandhāran “complex stelae” were in fact part of mainstream Buddhist practices, thus challenging the interpretation that they are evidence of Mahāyāna-related early Buddhist visual and ritual practices.

About the Speaker

Dr. Dessi Vendova is a Ho Foundation Buddhism Public Scholar based at the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), Boston. Prior to this, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow in East Asian Art and Religion at Graduate Theological Union. She earned her PhD, MPhil, and MA degrees in Religion (Buddhism) from Columbia University, with a specialization in early Indian and premodern Chinese Buddhism and art. Before her doctoral studies at Columbia University, Dr. Vendova spent eleven years studying and living in China and Japan, earning an BA in Chinese Language and MA in Classical Chinese Literature from Peking University, focusing on pre-Tang and Tang dynasty literature, religion and culture. She has also participated in wide-ranging field research and language study in India.

This event is co-sponsored by the Department of the History of Art & Architecture.