3rd Century
The Story of Thadingyut
room India
Thadingyut marks the descent of the Buddha from the Trayastrimsa heaven of the 33 gods where he had gone to preach the Abhidharma (or 'higher teachings') for three months, including to Indra, Brahma, and his mother Maya who had been reborn there.
This 3rd-century Gandhara sculpture (today at the Ashmolean museum at Oxford in the UK) shows the Gautama Buddha flanked by the Brahma and Indra descending down the triple stairway from the Trayastrimsa heaven. The nun Utpalavarna kneels in waiting below. Thadingyut celebrates the Buddha's return to earth and marks the end of Buddhist lent or rains retreat.
Gandhara was a Greek and Kushan Buddhist kingdom (from 180BC to 450AD) in what is today Afghanistan and Pakistan. See also Full Moon of Waso.