Vastu-shastra (Vol. I: Hindu Science of Architecture; Vol. II: Hindu Canons of Iconography and Painting) v2.c75.s3.94

v2.c75.s3.94

**Gandhāra Art:**—Historians and archaeologists like Foucher held that the Graeco-Buddhists carved out the first statue of the Buddha in Gandhara. “The intermixture of the Greek with the indegenous plastic art gave rise to what we now call the Graeco-Buddhist Art, popularly known as the Gandhara School of sculpture. Buddha was the chief object of representation in this art; the events and stories from his life were represented; many of the Jātaka stories of his previous births were also represented. At Taxila, Peshawar, Sahri-Balhol and numerous other places in the North-West Frontier Province, heaps of stones have been unearthed bearing innumerabe images of Buddha in different attitudes (Āsanas) and different gestures (Mudrās). Besides Buddhas images, we meet with the images of Jambhāla, Maitreya, Hārīt^i, the Indian Madonna, and her consort, and other Bodhisattva images in the Gandhara Art, besides numerous other things.” The beginings of this school may be assigned to the 1st century B. C.