History of Indian and Indonesian Art c8.s2.83

c8.s2.83

All the Mathurā sculptures showing traces of Hellenistic influence, taken together, constitute a very small fraction of the whole production of the school. Given the identity of theme, a greater divergence of the early Mathurā Buddha, Bodhisattva and Jina type from that of the Buddha and Bodhisattva of Gandhāra could hardly be imagined (cf. figs. 94, 96). The wide distribution of the Mathurā type and the fact that it was locally copied show that it was regarded as the orthodox model. Incidentally, this has a bearing on the question of the date of the Gandhāra school; for if the Gandhāran type had been evolved and acquired prestige long before Buddhas were made at Mathurā, the Indian sculptors, who had no prejudice against a foreign style, would surely have made use of it². The only possible conclusion is that the Buddha figure must have been produced simultaneously, probably in the middle of or near the beginning of the first century A. D., in Gandhāra and in Mathurā, in response to a demand created by the internal development of the Buddhism which was common ground in both areas³; in each case by local craftsmen, working in the local tradition.