The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c8.29

c8.29

Visit afresh the collections, or turn over at your leisure the reproductions, of Greco-Buddhist bas-reliefs. The sole distinction between the Bodhisattva, or any other great lay person, and Buddha consists in this, that the latter appears without jewels and draped to the neck in the monastic gown. On the other hand, the only characteristic difference between the Master and the monks of his order lies in the privilege, which he alone enjoys, of retaining his hair. At this point the recipe for fabricating a Buddha after the mode of Gandhâra presents itself spontaneously to you (pl. XVI, 1). You take the body of a monk, and surmount it with the head of a king (or what in India comes to the same thing, a god), after having first stripped it of turban and earrings. These are the two necessary and sufficing ingredients of this curious synthesis; and you divine immediately the advantages of this procedure. Were it not for the head, confusion with any other monk would be almost inevitable : and this simple consideration may help to explain why the ancient native school abstained from representing the disciples as well as the Master (¹). On the other hand, were