Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c14.36

c14.36

An important question for this school is the origin of the Buddha image for which many western writers have argued. But it remains a mere hypothesis for which no firm proof has been adduced. We have shown in our study of Mathura school, that the Buddha image originated at Mathura as an out-come of the combination of the Chakravartī and Yogī ideals, that not a single element of Buddhist iconography like the Padmāsana, Dhyāna-mudrā, Nāsāgra-dṛiṣṭi, Siṃhāsana, Chāmaragrāhiṇī, divine figures showering flowers, Ūrṇā, Uṣṇīṣa, has any meaning in Greek and Iranian mythology. A western origin of the Buddha image in Gandhāra cannot therefore be admitted in any manner. The Yaksha-Bodhisattva formula of the Mathura School has no parallel in Gandhāra. Only a distinct type of Buddha image with whiskers, both seated and standing statues wearing sandals, appeared in Gandhāra but from the point of view of its spiritual expression it is so inferior that no school of art would claim any credit for it.