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Detail of the left side of the Siege of Kushinagara, fresco 'City cave' Šōrčuq.
Karashahr, 8th Century AD (?)
Siege of Kushinagara
Karashar, Shikshin. VIII century
Painting on dry plaster
Receipt: 1931, from the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera), Russian Academy of Sciences; from materials of the First Russian Turkestan Expedition of S. F. Oldenburg, 1909–1910.
Hermitage Museum Inv. No. ШШ-779
The plot of the painting is associated with the events that took place after the death and cremation of the body of Buddha Shakyamuni near Kushinagara. When news of these events reached the cities in which Shakyamuni preached the Doctrine, the princes who ruled in them gathered troops and laid siege to Kushinagara, demanding that they give them a sharira - relics left after the cremation of the Buddha's body. The leaders of the besiegers belonged to the Shakya clan, from which Buddha Shakyamuni himself came. One of his disciples, a brahmana named Drona, recalled his vow not to harm living beings, thereby stopping the battle that was about to begin. He divided the Buddha's ashes into eight parts, and the Buddhist communities thus received their share. Memorial stupas were erected over each of these relics.
Photo by Oleg Belaychuk
