Standing Buddha

This sculpture would have been placed in a Buddhist shrine or along the walls of some other religious structure. The right hand, now missing, was probably held upward, palm out, in the gesture of reassurance.

Artists in the ancient region of Gandhara in today’s Pakistan created a great deal of early Buddhist art. You will see many examples in this gallery. Gandhara had cultural links with the ancient Greek and Roman world. Alexander the Great’s eastward military campaigns centuries earlier had established lines of communication.

When British archaeologists became aware of the Buddhist remains in Gandhara during the 1800s, they were excited to find images that suggested, through their toga-like drapery and figural treatment, connections with ancient Greco-Roman art.