Standing Buddha from Gandhara (Tokyo)
The Standing Buddha of the
Context
Some of the standing Buddhas (such as the example pictured) were sculpted using the specific Greek technique of making the hands and sometimes the feet in marble to increase the realistic effect, and the rest of the body in another material. It is also defined as the "Great Standing Buddha"
Development
From another direction, 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 BC, and the same murals describe the Emperor Han Wudi (156–87 BC) worshiping Buddhist statues, explaining them as "golden men brought in 120 BC 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 BC, connecting them directly to the time of the Indo-Greeks.
Later, the Chinese historical chronicle
- "The Emperor, to discover the true doctrine, sent an envoy to Tianzhu (Northwestern India) to inquire about the Buddha's doctrine, after which paintings and statues [of the Buddha] appeared in the Middle Kingdom."[2]
An Indo-Chinese tradition also explains that
References
Citations
- ^ Marshall 1960, p. 101.
- ^ Hill 2003.
Bibliography
- The Tokyo National Museum for the statue
- Bussagli, Mario; Francine Tissot; Béatrice Arnal (1996). L'art du Gandhara (in French). Paris: Librairie générale française. ISBN 2-253-13055-9
- "Chapter on the Western Regions". The Western Regions according to the Hou Hanshu. Translated by Hill, John E. (2nd ed.). 2003. Retrieved 16 June 2022.
- Marshall, John (1960). Buddhist art of Gandhara. Retrieved 16 June 2022.