Nagarjunakonda: Life of the Buddha - Renunciation of Nanda

INDIA, Andhra Pradesh

This extended relief was once on the third stupa at Nagarjunakonda. The story of Nanda’s reluctant renunciation on the day of his wedding was popular and can be found at several other sites. Each of the four scenes shown here is divided by squared pillars, between which are couples in dalliance that emphasize Nanda’s continuing desire for his abandoned bride.
The narrative sequence is from right to left and the first scene of the Buddha’s encounter with his cousin Nanda at the wedding is fragmentary. The second scene illustrates the tonsure ceremony over which the Buddha presides. Nanda is taken to heaven and shown the far more beautiful heavenly beings that dwell there in the third scene. The monkeys in the trees are those he now compares to his abandoned bride. The fourth scene shows Nanda at last indifferent to worldly temptations. A solitary female spirit stands under a tree with her on a makara on the far left.