Studies in Indian Art c12.s3.t2.2

c12.s3.t2.2

The Mathura sculptures, however, point to the fact that during the Kushāṇa period this Bodhisattva cult was not yet developed. The statuettes, No. A 43 and 68 of the Mathurā Museum are the only figures which can be identified with Maitreya. I do not know of any representation of Avalokiteśvara, not to speak of other less popular Boddhisattvas. Even those well known groups of a seated Buddha between two standing Bodhisattvas, so common in later Buddhist art, do not seem to occur at Mathurā. This is the more remarkable, as such triads were already known in Gandhāra’.