The Buddhist Art of Gandhara: The Story of the Early School, its Birth, Growth and Decline c17.8

c17.8

Among the countless images of the Buddha dating from this period there were, needless to say, many differing varieties produced by the many ateliers in Gandhāra. To the two examples of these varieties described above space allows me to add only three more (figs. 133-6). One of them is the gentle, benevolent, homely-looking figure illustrated in fig. 133, where the Buddha is shown with three of the Kāśyapa brothers, who can be recognized, as in fig. 115, by the pointed garment (here reaching to the ground) of the figure on the right. In this statue observe that the hair is taken back from the forehead over the *uṣṇīṣa*, as in the older statues and as in figs. 134 and 135; and observe, too, the character of the scroll pattern on the base of this statue which is found on other pieces of the same period.