The Buddhist Art of Gandhara: The Story of the Early School, its Birth, Growth and Decline c12.7

c12.7

Therefore it is of supreme interest to observe that in this relief the Buddha is of the same stature and appearance as the rest of the figures, with nothing yet evident to distinguish him from the monk beside him except his halo. Whether the Buddha was at this stage crowned with the familiar top-knot (*uṣṇīṣa*) is a point that the damaged state of the relief prevents our determining. Within a few years of the carving of this relief the *uṣṇīṣa* was to become an invariable feature of all Buddha images, and it is at least highly probable that it was present in this one,¹ but we are not yet entitled to take it for granted. The halo, it need hardly be said, was a Greek invention; and the monk’s dress worn by the Buddha and his companion was also Greek: of a pattern which, as M. Foucher long ago pointed out, is exemplified in the well-known Sophocles statue in the Lateran Museum. Presumably the dress had been adopted by the Buddhist *bhikshus* at a time when Greek fashions were prevalent in that area. It is a type of dress that is not found among the early figural reliefs of India.