Research Of Early Buddha Icon Of Mathurā School In Ancient India

When and where did Sakyamuni buddha image create? And how about thecircumstances? How can the buddha image be accepted by the buddhists, whoactually made great efforts for the development and spread of the buddha icon. Suchimportant questions as other complicated and mysterious ones, involving Indian Arts,especially buddhist history will be solved in this paper.In the whole progress of Buddhist art’s development in ancient India, thereare three major eras--Maurya, Kushan and Gupta Empire, which accomplished thegreat reformation, from pre-icon era to icon era. It was Kushan period that played theimportant role. At that time, three major art schools of Buddha image were createdspontaneous practically in three places of Gandhara in Northwest India, Mathurā inMiddle India and Amaravati in South India. Then the buddha icon turned up. Whichschool was the first place having made the buddha image, was a difficult questionargued by schoolars for many centuries.These years, there are not only some legendsproving that the buddha image origins at Mathurā, but also the convincingarchaeological evidence which is the125ear buddha image was excavated fromChina dressed in Mathurā style. Meanwhile, the125year buddha takes the Kanishkaera forth to A. D.78. Contrary to Mathurā, Gandhara school just as a local styleshould reexam its position in early buddhist art in India.As a prototype, Dravidian and Jainism images gave birth to Mathurā buddha.Nevertheless, Mathurā buddha turned up spontaneously. The Statue depended ontraditional Dravidian, Jainism, and Brahmanism mode. The prime appearance of thebuddha, didn’t possess all the characteristic marks or a Maha-Purusa on the oldestimages. Actually, usnisa, ajanubahu, pralambakarnapasa, visalavasa, andjalangulikara didn’t show as a standard in later buddha images’ making, until as lateas the second century. The reason is that buddhism did not have an image-makingskill, and all the characteristic marks of buddha also relied on Cakravartin images.As is known to all, buddhist art experienced a pre-icon progress. At that time,there are no images of buddha. However, we have found no forbiddance of buddhaimage-making. While at prime time, images were mostly inscribed “Bodhisattva”and “Bhagavat” as their names, instead of “buddha”. In my opinion, the act ofnaming was also rooted from Yaksa. Therefore, this is why buddha in Mathurā wasworshiped as a divinity radically, distinguished from Gandhara image, which isdressed in Pince costoms, for Sakyamuni buddha as the human.Early Gandhara and Amaravati icon mode, can be disproof Mathurā created buddha icon firstly. Former schoolars emphasized mainly on buddha originated fromGandhara, and Gandhara buddha originated from Greece image-making tradition,but neglected the point of Indian ancient customs in Gandhara mode. Meanwhile,Indian ancient customs in Gandhara and Amaravati school, also approved thepossibility of buddha originated from Dravidian. This is a new point of view in thisarticle. After Kushan empire, there formed a new Mathurā buddha style, which wascombined Gandhara and Amaravati styles of sculpture skill, with Mathurā itself, andturned up to Gupta type in the Goden age.This article focuses on the creation of buddha image of Mathurā school in earlyperiod, and different stages in progress, tells the probability of buddha originated inMathurā, and the acception of buddha image in Mathurā. After the combination withGandhara and Amaravati, Mathurā buddha kept a longer life. To4thcentery, Mathurābuddha evolved a new style, which was famous as Gupta school, and this schoolspread to far east and China later.