Early Buddhist Sculpture from Gandhara and Hadda in the Hermitage Collection

• Main Author: Yulija Igorevna Yelikhina
• Format: Article
• Language: Russian
• Published: Ural Federal University Press 2015-07-01
• Series: Известия Уральского федерального университета. Серия 2: Гуманитарные науки
• Subjects: буддизм; каменная скульптура; Гандхара; Хадда; бодхисаттвы; иконография.
• Online Access: https://journals.urfu.ru/index.php/Izvestia2/article/view/1344

The article describes the collection of sculptures from Gandhara and Hadda, and characterizes the style and iconography of its images. The author analyzes the earliest Buddhist sculptures from Gandhara and Hadda kept in the Hermitage Museum collection. The collection consists of thirty-two objects dating back to the early stage of Buddhist art formation and development. The sculptures were created between the 2nd and the 5th centuries AD and depict Buddha, Bodhisattvas and monks. The study of the aforementioned findings is significant as they demonstrate the process of development of iconographic and iconometric canons of Buddhist art that uses antique and late Hellenic traditions as its basis. The art of Gandhara and Hadda served as a standard of the depiction of Buddha and Bodhisattvas. There are works imitating them among the monuments of Cashmere, the valley of the Swat River, the Middle East, Eastern Turkestan, China, Korea, Japan, Nepal, Tibet and South-Eastern Asia.