page_title: Buddhist art
section_title: Iconic phase (1st century CE – present)
hierarchical_section_title: Buddhist art / History / Iconic phase (1st century CE – present)
caption_attribution_description: English: Bodhisattva Padmapani, cave 1, Ajanta, India. Painting on stone wall. Height: 1.2 m. English: Bodhisattva Padmapani, cave 1, Ajanta, Inde. Pigment sur roche. Hauteur&#160;: 1,2 m.
context_page_description: Buddhist art is the artistic practices that are influenced by Buddhism. It includes art media which depict Buddhas, bodhisattvas, and other entities; notable Buddhist figures, both historical and mythical; narrative scenes from the lives of all of these; mandalas and other graphic aids to practice; as well as physical objects associated with Buddhist practice, such as vajras, bells, stupas and Buddhist temple architecture. Buddhist art originated on the Indian subcontinent following the historical life of Siddhartha Gautama, 6th to 5th century BCE, and thereafter evolved by contact with other cultures as it spread throughout Asia and the world.
  Buddhist art followed believers as the dharma spread, adapted, and evolved in each new host country. It developed to the north through Central Asia and into Eastern Asia to form the Northern branch of Buddhist art, and to the east as far as Southeast Asia to form the Southern branch of Buddhist art. In India, Buddhist art flourished and co-developed with Hindu and Jain art, with cave temple complexes built together, each likely influencing the other.
context_section_description: Chinese historical sources and mural paintings in the Tarim Basin city of Dunhuang accurately describe the travels of the explorer and ambassador Zhang Qian to Central Asia as far as Bactria around 130 BCE, and the same murals describe the Emperor Han Wudi (156–87 BCE) worshiping Buddhist statues, explaining them as "golden men brought in 120 BCE by a great Han general in his campaigns against the nomads." Although there is no other mention of Han Wudi worshiping the Buddha in Chinese historical literature, the murals would suggest that statues of the Buddha were already in existence during the 2nd century BCE, connecting them directly to the time of the Indo-Greeks.
  Anthropomorphic representations of the Buddha started to emerge from the 1st century CE in Northern India, with the Bimaran casket. The three main centers of creation have been identified as Gandhara in today's North West Frontier Province, in Pakistan, Amaravati and the region of Mathura, in central northern India.
  Hellenistic culture was introduced in Gandhara during the conquests of Alexander the Great in 332 BCE. Chandragupta Maurya (r. 321–298 BCE), founder of the Mauryan Empire, conquered the Macedonian satraps during the Seleucid-Mauryan War of 305–303 BCE. Chandragupta's grandson Ashoka (r. 268–232 BCE), who formed the largest Empire in the Indian subcontinent, converted to Buddhism following the Kalinga War. Abandoning an expansionist ideology, Ashoka worked to spread the religion and philosophy throughout his empire as described in the edicts of Ashoka. Ashoka claims to have converted the Greek populations within his realm to Buddhism:
  Here in the king's domain among the Greeks, the Kambojas, the Nabhakas, the Nabhapamkits, the Bhojas, the Pitinikas, the Andhras and the Palidas, everywhere people are following Beloved-of-the-Gods' instructions in Dharma.
  After the overthrow of the Mauryan Empire by the Shunga Empire, the  Greco-Bactrian and subsequently the Indo-Greek Kingdoms invaded north-western India. They facilitated the spread of Greco-Buddhist art style to other parts of the subcontinent. The Indo-Greek King Menander I was renown as a great patron of Buddhism, attaining the title of an arhat. Meanwhile Pushyamitra Shunga persecuted Buddhism, presumably to further erase the legacy of the Mauryan Empire. This led to the decline of Buddhist art east of Mathura.
  Gandharan Buddhist sculpture displays Hellenistic artistic influence in the forms of human figures and ornament. Figures were much larger than any known from India previously, and also more naturalistic, and new details included wavy hair, drapery covering both shoulders, shoes and sandals, and acanthus leaf ornament.
  The art of Mathura tends to be based on an Indian tradition, exemplified by the anthropomorphic representation of divinities such as the Yaksas, although in a style rather archaic compared to the later representations of the Buddha. The Mathuran school contributed clothes covering the left shoulder of thin muslin, the wheel on the palm, the lotus seat.
  Mathura and Gandhara also influenced each other. During their artistic florescence, the two regions were even united politically under the Kushans, both being capitals of the empire. It is still a matter of debate whether the anthropomorphic representations of Buddha was essentially a result of a local evolution of Buddhist art at Mathura, or a consequence of Greek cultural influence in Gandhara through the Greco-Buddhist syncretism.
  This iconic art was characterized from the start by a realistic idealism, combining realistic human features, proportions, attitudes and attributes, together with a sense of perfection and serenity reaching to the divine. This expression of the Buddha as both man and God became the iconographic canon for subsequent Buddhist art.
  Remains of early Buddhist painting in India are vanishingly rare, with the later phases of the Ajanta Caves giving the great majority of surviving work, created over a relatively short up to about 480 CE.  These are highly sophisticated works, evidently produced in a well
caption: Over life-size figure of the bodhisattva Padmapani, cave 1, Ajanta Caves, 5th century
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