With its gesture signifying the absence of fear (abbaya mudra), this hand of a monumental Buddha, modelled in raw clay, was entirely gilded in keeping with the Buddhist tradition wherein the Buddha should glow with a fine golden light.
The piece supposedly comes from Bamiyan where the French Archaeological Delegation in Afghanistan (DAFA) worked under Joseph Hackin’s direction, from 1924 to 1935 documenting decorations enhancing thousands of caves hewn in the cliff. At the heart of the Hindu-Kouch “snowy mountains”, according to stories told by Chinese pilgrims who crossed them between the 5th and 7th centuries to travel to the land of Buddha in India, the Bamiyan Valley is an essential stopover on the old road connecting Central Asia to India, from the site of Bactra in the North to that of Taxila in the South-East.
A caravan stage, Bamiyan is also a Buddhist monastic centre, its importance increasing by the 4th century. The immense cliff overlooking the valley is rhythmed by the monumental image of two Buddhas represented standing (38 metres high for one, 53 metres for the other) which, according to testimonies by pilgrims, used to glow in the sun. Today they are dated to the 6th and early 7th centuries. Between the two icons, and on each side, over a hundred caves had been excavated, used as cells for the monks, as chapels and community halls sometimes adorned with a painted, but also carved decoration. This piece is raw clay mixed with rough straw, a technique belonging to the last period of Buddhist art in Afghan territory, preceding a practice that would spread to Xinjiang. This fondness for monumental images developed as of the 6th century, from Ajanta in India to Ajina-Tepe in present-day Tajikistan, then from there to China, in the sanctuaries of Yungang or Longmen.
