ANCIENT REGION OF GANDHARA, 3RD-4TH CENTURY CE

The present relief, with its depiction of Buddha Shakyamuni touching the wheel above two recumbent deer, represents the Buddha's first sermon in the deer park at Sarnath, when he was said to have first turned the wheel of the law (dharmachakra). He is surrounded in the present relief with attentive disciples and ethereal apsaras.