The Buddhist Art of Gandhara: The Story of the Early School, its Birth, Growth and Decline c17.10

c17.10

By the side of the broad and fleshy frames of the two foregoing images, fig. 136, with its slender torso, relatively narrow shoulders and demure-looking countenance, presents an almost effeminate appearance. Its date must lie very near to the close of the Later Maturity Period, between about A.D. 220 and 230. Evidence of this late date is afforded by the squarish shape of the projecting knees, which at this time was becoming more and more marked, but still more by the figures on the base, which, instead of forming a separate panel as in figs. 131 or 135, now play their part directly in front of the drapery of the throne itself as if an integral part of it. This method of treating subsidiary reliefs is an indubitable sign of their late date.