sophisticated aesthetics of the varied regions and periods in which it flourished.
             In early Buddhist art, the Buddha was merely symbolized by a wheel, a bodhi tree, or a stupa. Not until the Kushan period [AD 50-250], during the reign of Kanishka I, was the historic Buddha represented in human form. The creation of a Buddha image in human form corresponded to the theological changes influenced by Mahayana Buddhism taking place in the religion. Two distinct styles of sculpture emerged during the Kushan period, one associated with the region of Gandhara and the other with the city of Mathura in northern India. There is much debate in which region these first images appeared, and such discussion is not relevant to my thesis. What is relevant is that these two regions developed two distinctly different styles of sculpture.
             While Mathuran art developed from local Indian artistic traditions, Gandharan sculptures were heavily influenced by the artistic traditions of the Hellenistic world, most probably as a result of Alexander the Great's colony in Bactria (western Afghanistan). "Mathura school sculptures often share iconographic features with their Kusana-period counterparts in the northwest. But for the most part, they reveal a purely Indic stylistic heritage that must have evolved independently" (Huntington 151). The Gandharan style of sculpture, on the other hand, combines an intriguing blend of Western classical and Indian influences. Gandhara was a region in the northwest of ancient India, known for its Greco-Buddhist school of sculpture. Gandhara corresponded to the modern Peshawar valley, but its more popular meaning today encompasses large portions of northern Pakistan and adjoining northeastern Afghanistan.
             Gandhara's regional location was vital to this Hellenistic development. Gandhara was located just east of the famous Khyber Pass, comprising what is now north-western Pakistan. The art of ...