The team also unearthed a Buddha statue with a double halo, the first of this type to be found at this site, known as the Bhamala Stupa site. The stupa dates back to the fourth century AD, and the team carrying out excavations was led by Dr Abdul Samad, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa director, Department of Archaeology and Museums, Pakistan.
“This is one of the few sites in the world to have the cruciform Stupa which was reserved for Buddha himself,” said Samad. Samad explained that the large statue of the dying Buddha is 14 meters in length, the largest known from the Gandhara civilization. The statue was placed on a 15-meter platform, and depicted the famous scene known as Mahaparinirvana, the samadhi of Buddha as he left his body.
Gautama the Buddha is the founder of Buddhism, a religion with around 300 million adherents, and is seen as a master and teacher even today. The Buddha did not attain samadhi at Takshashila however. This occurred Kushinagar, in North India. Takshashila was however a prominent university and center of Buddhist learning for many centuries from as early as several centuries BC.
The statue of Buddha’s head is however missing, and may have been looted. “Other parts of the statue such as the left leg and arms were also found in a damaged condition,” he said. The UNESCO World Heritage site has also yielded 510 other antiquities during the current excavation. Terracotta and stucco sculptures, iron nails, hooks, door fittings and hair clips, copper artifacts and 14 coins of the Kushan period have turned up. Samples of organic remnants have been sent for dating to the Center for South Asia, University of Wisconsin Madison.
