Buddhist Reliefs Of Gandhara

The School of the Mahayana Buddhism began to rise in the region of the Greater Gandhara (Pakistan) around the1st century A.D.,when a great quantity of relief panels were carved there,depicting the whole life of the Sakyamuni Buddha.During this period, sculptors and craftsmen began to use "human figure" rather than maintain holy relics and symbols to represent the image of Buddha, and influenced by imported culture based on early Buddhist sculptures.From the decorative plates excavated in the Silkap City in Taxila and the relief panels on Stupas and other constructions, we can see that the composition and narrating way containning in the reliefs of this region had became much more skilled.These treasures are all over the world, exhibited in museums and galleries, keeping their incompleteness since their first being excavated。This thesis tries to briefly discuss the composition of the Gandhara reliefs by refering to relevant pictures and documents. Taking subects from"the birth of Gautama"to"Pravrajana"as examples to find out how these stories are arranged together, from which the sequence will be established, and the features of which will be analysed.