origins of the kashmiri style 163
Kartsé sculpture. The thumb of the right hand is turned as if the palm is fac-
ing in, rather than out (fig. 5.7). What has until now not been remarked is that
the thumb and index finger hold the stalk of a nāgapuṣpa-flower which can
be seen against the backdrop above Maitreya’s right shoulder and below the
apsaras on that side. Perhaps originally it was coloured so as to give height-
ened visibility to this important iconographic marker. The left hand holds
a kuṇḍikā, the water vessel, down alongside his leg (fig. 5.8). It is of a rather
more conventional sort than the Dras ewer held at the hip (fig. 5.2). The thumb
and fingers of the Kartsé bodhisattva wear rings, while chunky beaded jewel-
lery adorn the upper arms, wrists, neck, waist and earlobes. The belt has two
rows of pearl-like beads, with a floral medallion formed by the beads at the
centre. The vanamālā hangs down somewhat stiffly after it wraps around
the arms, and reaches below the knees. It is flatter, almost ribbon-like along the
left upper arm, and less detailed than the one on the Dras Maitreya. Aspects
that are very similar, however, include the treatment of the groin, waist and
upper left thigh. As for the latter, in both sculptures there is a distinct loop
of a scarf, scored with folds, just below the left side of the belt. Another simi-
larity is the shape of the torso (fig. 5.7), which is compact and muscular, par-
ticularly around the navel, where the Kashmiri convention for soft skin over
well-developed abdominal muscles can be seen—this convention can become
even more stylised in later works.
Where the head and crown of the Dras Maitreya were damaged beyond
recognition, with no details remaining, the face and tiara of the Kartsé
bodhisattva are still relatively crisp (fig. 5.9). The irises and pupils of the eyes
are scored, the cheeks plump, the nostrils and the lip-commissure drilled,
and the juncture of the two planes of the upper eyes and the forehead scored.
The hair has the arrangement frequently met with in Kashmiri sculpture, in
which the two sides are swept up off the hairline, leaving a different arrange-
ment of the hair at the centre, found, for instance at the ca. ninth-century
Avalokiteśvara from the site of Pandrethan in Kashmir (fig. 5.10). The chin of
the Suru sculpture is exaggerated because of the extreme angle of view from
below, but comparison of the shapes of the very thick lips but compact mouth
with Kashmiri sculptures shows them to be quite similar.34 As is typical in
Kashmiri stone sculptures, the lower lip is scored vertically along the middle.
The crown is of the three-crest variety, loaded with swags of pearls, in higher
relief across the tiara than the Pandrethan example, which also lacks the flow-
ers above the ears. These are more pronounced than in the many other exam-
ples found in Kashmiri sculpture, both stone and metal, but the exaggeration
34 See for example Siudmak, Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture of Ancient Kashmir, pl. 62, 64, 96,
97, 119.