GANDHARA, 2ND/3RD CENTURY

The scene belongs to a group of reliefs generally attributed to the miracle of Sravasti where Buddha performed eight miraculous feats using divine power before King Kosala in Sravasti, who had challenged his superiority. During the second and decisively overwhelming miracle, the two Naga kings, Nanda and Upananda, created a lotus on whose petals the Buddha seated himself and by supernatural power created multiple images of himself that issued all around him.
For a related example in the Lahore Museum, with similarly organized architectural setting, see I. Kurita, Gandharan Art, vol. 1, 2003, cat. no. 395, p. 196.