History of Indian and Indonesian Art c8.s2.74

c8.s2.74

In addition to these sculptures the supposed figure of Buddha, but perhaps a king, of the early Kuṣāna type, seated cross-legged, broad shouldered, the left hand on the thigh, the elbow extended, but with some undetermined object held in the raised right hand, appears on certain coins (fig. 119) of a king Kadapha, who is probably to be identified with Kadphises I, and must have reigned near to the middle of the first century A. D.³. Certain of Kaniṣka's coins bear the standing figure of Buddha in loose diaphanous robes, with nimbus and body-halo, and the legend "Boddo" (fig. 123)⁴; others a seated Buddha, apparently with curly hair and in any case of a later type than Kadapha's, with the legend "Goboydo" (Go[tamo] Budo)⁵. Mr. Longworth Dames believed that the much earlier seated broad-shouldered cross-legged figure on the reverse of a coin of Maues (Smith, 6, p. 12, and pl. VIII, 4) was a figure of Buddha⁶. The type is at least as close to a Buddha figure as that of the Kadapha coin, and would be the earliest Buddha figure known; but the identity cannot be regarded as established beyond all doubt in either case.