Endnote 3 – Imagining Buddha

In 1926, Ananda Coomaraswamy argued that the origins of the Buddha image are to be sought in the art of India proper (“The Indian Origin of the Buddha Image,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 46, pp. 165–170). Prototypes for both standing and seated images are already present in Mathura in the yaksa figures from the first three centuries B.C.E. and in the representations of Jina from the late first century B.C.E. Following Coomaraswamy, the Dutch scholar J.E. Van Lohuizen-de Leeuw made a strong case for the priority of the Buddha image in the art of Mathura.