I'm going to be talking to you about one of the most important objects
in the entire British Museum
and that's really saying something given the kind of
collections we have here but it's true.
I'm Dr Sushma Jansari
I'm the Curator of the Asian ethnographic and South Asia collections
here at the British Museum.
Welcome to my corner.
This is the Bimaran casket
and on the front you can see an image of the Buddha
and it's actually the earliest dateable image of the Buddha in human form.
Previously the Buddha was shown in symbolic form
so maybe footprints, a throne with a parasol on top
and it wasn't until this object was discovered and it had some coins with it
which date to about the 1st century AD that we
realized that actually
this shows the Buddha as a man, in human form
for the first time that we can date.
It was found in Gandhara which is a region sort of based on the Peshawar Valley
in northern Pakistan.
It's a region on the Silk Roads and it connected East Asia
with Western Asia and South Asia.
So there are lots of pilgrims and merchants following these routes.
Buddhism arrived in the Gandhara region in around the mid-3rd century BC.
It came from the Ganges Valley where the Buddha preached
and it was soon afterwards that the first stupas and monasteries were established there.
By about the 7th-8th centuries AD Buddhism was in decline
and by the very start of the 11th century AD it was essentially vanished from the area.
Although a lot of the stupas and monasteries
- which were beautifully embellished or sculpture I have to say -
although most of them were ruined
a lot of them were actually incorporated into other structures
for example villages
and some of the stone and sculpture was reused.
So it's not as if all of these sites were entirely abandoned
and sort of left to wrack and ruin
they played a longer role in the history and the lives of people
the local people living there.
Moving back to this particular object...
So these were found in stupa #2
of I think four or five stupas that were found around the village of Bimaran
and the person - Charles Masson; who actually discovered this object
he had opened up his stupa
and inside he found this object with four coins next to it
and this object: the Bimaran casket was found inside it.
So I'm going to talk about the Bimaran casket itself first.
It's cylindrical - as you can see
it's gold and really intricate
and the size and the intricate decoration really set it apart
from all of the other small gold and silver reliquaries
not very many of them
which are found in Gandhara
Relic deposits; they're tiny
maybe like a centimeter in size.
This isn't, this is spectacular.
You can see the Buddha doing the gesture of dispelling fear
so when you have the hand raised it's called a 'mudra'
which is a hand gesture
and on either side he has two Hindu deities
you have Brahma on this side
and you have Indra on the other side.
How can you tell the difference?
Brahma is usually shown as an ascetic
so he's wearing the very traditional unstitched clothing
the draped clothing on the lower body and the upper body.
He has his hair up in a topknot
and he's also carrying a small water pot in his hand there
On the other side you have Indra
and he's dressed in the clothing of a prince.
He's wearing a turban
he has his draped clothing on again
and he has armbands, bracelets
and he is praying to the Buddha there.
You might think it's unusual to find Hindu deities alongside the Buddha
it's really not unusual in Gandhara.
This particular kind of scene is found on so many sculptures there.
One of the most standard sort of iterations of having them side by side
is when the gods Brahma and Indra are entreating the Buddha to preach the Dharam
the Buddhist Dharma.
There's one rather more mysterious figure here as well
it's this figure
and he's got his hands in 'Anjali mudra'
which is that the mudra of respect, of paying respect.
It's really not clear who this figure is.
It's generally assumed that he's a bodhisattva.
Possibly maitreya which is the bodhisattva of the future
but who knows one day we might be able to identify him?
One thing that most people don't normally get to see
but I think it's probably one of all the most beautiful parts of this reliquary is the base.
I'll hold it very carefully
and you can see it's a full-blown Lotus with eight petals
and it's absolutely beautiful.
So we've talked about identifying Brahma and Indra
how on earth could we tell this is the Buddha?
Well in later representations he's often shown in this form
with his hands in this gesture with these two deities to either side.
He also has a cranial bump if you look closely.
It's called an ushna shah
and it sort of symbolizes his spiritual prowess
and you'll find it on most later representations of the Buddha.
So we're going to move on now to the stone reliquary casket.
It was originally in three parts
you can still see a small sort of indentation here
and this would have had a lid on top of it
but once again that was also missing when the deposit was opened.
So this object may well have had a separate life before it was included in this deposit.
Around the top and around the bottom you can see letters engraved into the surface
and those are in Kharosthi script in the Prakrit language
and Prakrit is a vernacular, an everyday language spoken in the region at the time.
The inscription on the lid reads: 'For relics of the Lord, donation of Śivarakṣiṭa,
son of Muavada'
The base inscription reads: 'Donation of Śivarakṣiṭa, son of Muavada, given for relics of the Lord
in honour of all Buddhas'
It's interesting that the name of the donor of this Buddhist deposit had a Śaivite name.
You know, you can tell he has the name Shiva in his name.
And it may be surprising to find that actually it's not unusual to have the names of Śaivites
or even Vaishnavites donating Buddhist reliquaries at this time in the early centuries AD.
If I open it up carefully
you can see the remains of four little parts on either side
and it would originally have been divided up inside
but those were scraped out so that you could fit this reliquary inside it
and it was also inside that you had all of those tiny little beads and tiny gold ornaments
as well.
OVishnnly about I think six reliquaries like this with the compartments inside
have actually ever been found so this is actually quite a rare object.
So at the start of this video I made quite a big claim which was that
this is one of the most important objects in the British Museum.
I hope you agree with me.
Not only is it the earliest dateable image of the Buddha in human form
it's actually one of the biggest
- in fact THE biggest -
and most intricately made gold reliquary of this size of this date from Gandhara as well
and it's in an inscribed stone reliquary
and you know what?
It's just very very beautiful to look at as well.
So if you want to see these important objects
all you have to do is come to the British Museum
and come down to the South Asia section of the Hotung Gallery
and you'll be able to see this in the flesh.
Lots of my wonderful colleagues have done other episodes of Curator's Corner
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