Depictions of uṣṇīṣa in Buddha images from the Gandharan Collection of the Peshawar Museum.

To Domenico Faccenna on the 100th Anniversary of His Birth (Roma 1923 - Castel Madama 2008)

Abstract

This paper describes and discusses a selection of Buddha heads stored at the Peshawar Museum Collection in the light of the academic discussion on the representation Buddha’s uṣṇīṣa in Gandharan art and according to the descriptive terminology established by Faccenna. The article is structured in three sections: the first section presents a very brief introduction to the Peshawar Museum Collection; the second one provides an overview of the scholarship on the Buddha’s uṣṇīṣa and its representation in Gandharan sculptures; the third and final section presents a selective catalogue of some unpublished Buddha heads from the Peshawar Museum Collection. The study is dedicated to Domenico Faccenna, the first Director of the Italian Archaeological Mission in Pakistan (from 1955) on the centenary of his birth.