Medieval Indian Sculpture in the British Museum

But the deliberate exclusion of the figures of the Buddhas from the reliefs on these monuments together '01th...the absence of images of the Jinas indicates that the cult of the image of thdP Yogi did not font! part of the popular religion of Eastern and Central India before the rise of the Kushan empire. [...] The question that now confronts us is how could the cult of the images of the Yggi (of the Jinas and the Buddhas) suddenly arise in Mathura and Gandhara about the beginning of the Christian era and thence gradually spread to the birthplace of Jainism and Buddhism ? The only satisfactory answer to this question that suggests itself is that.this sudden rise of the cult of the images of the Yogi i [...] The earliest specimen of the Kushan art of Mathura is the colossal standing image of the Bodhisattva (future Buddha) dedicated by the monk Bala at Baranasi at the walk of the Lord " (Sarnath) in the third year of Maharaja Kanislika.2 The Hellenic character of the Buddha in the Guides' mess at Hoti-Mardan said by Ilkofessor Foucher to be " the most beautiful and probably also the most ancient of [...] The dated image next in order of time is the Bodh-Gaya image of the Bodhisattva of the year 64 of Maharaja Trikamala.1 The characters used in the votive inscription on the base of this image closely resemble the characters of the Allahabad Asoka Pillar inscription of Samudragupta known as the Eastern variety of the Gupta script. [...] This monk Bala is named as the donor of an image of the Bodbnattva of the smile style and size erected at gravasti at the walk of the Lord found at Saheth-Maheth in the Gonda District in Oudh and now exhibited in the Indian Museum Calcutta.' Beside the material and the style of these two images of the Bodhisattva de dicated by Bala there are evidences to establish the connection of the donor w