A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c10.s1.13

c10.s1.13

Herein lies the most obvious, and at the same time, perhaps, the most important difference between the ancient schools of interior India at Sānchī, Bharhut, or Bodh-Gayā, and the school of Gandhāra, with the cognate branches at Mathurā and Amarāvatī. In Gandhāra art, as M. Foucher observes, Buddha is everywhere; and whatever be the form which he assumes, as Prince Charming, emaciated ascetic, or ideal monk, or by whatever name he may be called, whether it be Siddhārtha, Sramana Gautama, or Buddha Sakyamuni, he dominates almost every composition, so that the preparation of a full list of the sculptors' subjects is equivalent to writing an illustrated life of the Master. The early schools of Indian art, as we have seen, were content to indicate his supposed presence by mere symbols, and did not presume to imagine his bodily likeness.