104 CHAPTER FIVEMahayana texts state that, in ultimate terms, femaleness and maleness are both
empty, thus providing an opening for the traditional position of gender neu-
trality when it comes to the attainment of Awakening. This opening laid the
seeds for new roles for Buddhist women both in the Tantric period, which
was to follow, and in the Buddhist feminist movement today.
5.3 IMAGES OF THE BUDDHA
The image of the Buddha represents a significant innovation in Buddhist art.
As we have already noted, in the earliest Buddhist art the primary image of
the deceased Buddha was the stupa, the reliquary mound intended to function
as a locus for pilgrimage and as a reminder of the doctrine of impermanence.
Early Buddhology found it inappropriate to represent the Buddha in iconic
form because the Buddha had made it clear that he was not to be identified
with his body.
Why, then, did this attitude change in the first century B. C.E.? Part of the
answer may be found in traditions outside of Buddhism. Some early Indian
traditions did not use anthropomorphic images, whereas others, stemming
from the pre-Aryan civilization of the Indus, did use a variety of images of
male and female individuals and deities. This iconographic tradition reap-
peared in popular religious art of the third to first centuries B.C.E., concurrent
with the development of theism and bhakti (devotion) in early popular Hin-
duism. Buddhists, watching trends in Hinduism, may have wanted a more per-
sonal focal point for their worship than the abstract stupa. A specifically Indian
style of Buddha-image was d-eveloped in the upper Ganges city of Mathura,
which had long specialized in producing images of yak~as and yak~iJ:.li:S, male
and female deities of superhuman power and size worshiped by devotees seek-
ing worldly protection and benefits. The Mathura Buddha greatly resembled
the yak~a images both in form and function. The earliest sculptors invariably
represented him as massive and strong, with his right hand in a gesture of of-
fering protection. Such an image of the Buddha must be considered "popu-
lar," that is, a response to the worldly needs ofhis worshipers.
Greek traditions also seem to have played a role in the development of the
Buddha-image. In addition to Mathura, Gandhara in northwest India pro-
duced numerous early Buddha-images. This was an area that had experienced
many foreign invasions and dynasties, and was thus open to Hellenistic influ-
ences. The Gandharan Buddha greatly resembles Apollo and wears a Roman
toga, but lacks the warmth of the Mathuran modeling. Unlike Mathuran arti-
sans, Gandharan artisans created narrative sculptures of the Buddha's life, por-
traying specific incidents in realistic detail, with the Buddha in various poses.
In later centuries, the hieratic and narrative modes of Mathuran and Gandha-
ran sculpture gradually combined until in the Gupta period (fourth to seventh
century C.E.) the classical meditative, transcendental Buddha-image developed.
Images of the great bodhisattvas appeared concurrently with images of the
Buddha in the first century B.C.E. No images were identified with specific