The relief of “Dīpaṃkara Buddha’s Prophecy,” which was excavated near the Swāt Valley and now owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, portrays the scene of purchasing a flower from a young flower-selling girl. The girl’s left hand holds a bag containing money received from a man who represents Śākyamuni in a previous life, and her right hand holds two lotus flowers. Since the girl has a bag of money, we understand that the image portrays the moment after she has been paid for the lotus flowers, and two lotus flowers are assumed to have been retained by the girl in order to throw them at the Buddha. On the other hand, in the Buddhist literature that preserves the narrative of “Dīpaṃkara Buddha’s Prophecy,” only the Sanskrit Mahāvastu and Divyāvadāna depict the girl as throwing lotus flowers on the Buddha. In the Chinese translation literature, after the character who would later become Śākyamuni bought five lotus flowers, the girl handed over the remaining two lotus flowers to him, or the girl had only five lotus flowers to begin with, so the person who throws flowers at the Buddha was only this individual who would later become Śākyamuni, that is, the bodhisattva. Thus the Metropolitan Museum of Art relief is based on the same narrative scheme also preserved in the Mahāvastu and Divyāvadāna.
