134 lojda, klimburg-salter and strinu
in stone has been preserved, which consists of twenty-one Buddhas in earth-
touching pose (Skt. bhūmisparśamudrā) flanked by two standing bodhisattvas
(fig. 4.3).28 Both the entry hall figures and the maṇḍala display a two dimen-
sional style with broad rounded shoulders, legs in a wide voluminous dhotī,
and the inward curve of the torso, which slightly accentuates the waist.
The decorative motifs of the Tabo Phase I murals offer another connection
to Central Asian art (top of fig. 4.1). In the ambulatory, fragments of the original
Phase I murals of Tabo have been revealed beneath the later paintings through
the efforts of the Archaeological Survey of India in 1991. The style and the pig-
ments used in these murals demonstrate that they belong to the same phase
as the paintings of the entry hall. One decorative motif in particular—the pal-
mette—is similar and has been used throughout the founding phase decora-
tive programme from the entry hall in the East of the temple to the ambulatory
in the West. In Dunhuang we find a variation of these typical Central Asian
palmette-motifs on the weighting boards of some banners. A paper banner
with this decoration from cave 17 showing Avalokiteśvara can be attributed to
the eighth or ninth century (fig. 4.6).29
28 See Tibet Encyclopedia, “Buddha Felsen Skardu,” last modified August 16, 2013, accessed
July 17, 2014. http://www.tibet-encyclopedia.de/buddha-felsen-skardu.html.
29 According to Bhattacharya-Haesner the palmette rows are a typical Central Asian motif.
They can also be observed on textile fragments from Kočo (ninth–tenth century). A later
and more elaborated variation, also from Kočo (ninth–tenth century), shows staggered
delicate palmettes. See Bhattacharya-Haesner, Chhaya, Central Asian Temple Banners in
the Turfan Collection of the Museum für Indische Kunst (Berlin: Reimer, 2003), 413.
Figure 4.5 Double-sided painted wooden panel with Indra, Maya-Śri (?) and Brahma, c. sixth-
eighth century, Dandān-oilik.
© Trustees of the British Museum, London.