Accepted Panels

The ancient region of Gandhara, now northwestern Pakistan, lies at the crossroad of a multitude of cultural influences rendering its stunning Buddhist art and architecture a confluence of varied styles.  In the history of Buddhism in the Indian subcontinent Gandhara occupied the centre stage in the first six centuries of the first millennium AD. The region saw the propagation and establishment of Buddhism during the reign of the Mauryan emperor Asoka in the 3rd century BC. Gandharan art was produced between the 1st century BC and the 7th century AD and it further prospered under the Kushan empire. Artistic depictions of the Buddha during this period reached new heights in exploring different modes of representing corporeality, physical body as well as the depiction of personalities. The iconography incorporated motifs and techniques from GrecoRoman art. Much has been written about the evolution of the Buddha image in Gandhara, however the participation of women in the processes of production, commissioning and patronage of these famed sculptures and its residual meaning remains a marginalised concern. Were women and female devotees admitted to Buddhist viharas and allowed to influence decision-making within and outside the monastic orders? Why are the women propagators of Buddhism absent from narrative reliefs? Who commissioned/influenced the commissioning of scenes from the life of Buddha to carve and sculpt into eternity? And were there female artists? Can archaeological history be shaped sans the identity and labour of architects and sculptors? How did the Yak?i imagery contribute to the construction of gender identity? Furthermore, how did the many female patrons and monastics at Gandhara experience the architectural imagery?  Hence, the paper attempts to analyse the sculptural imagination of Gandhara as not just a practice of veneration but also as function of an important marker of the gendered hierarchies prevalent at the time.