The article concerns the iconography of early Buddhist art. It focuses on four of the most important events in Siddhartha Gautama's life, the Great departure, the Enlightment, the First sermon, and Mahaparinirvana, as portrayed on the Gandharan reliefs.
The types of representation of the Buddha and Bodhisattva in the anthropomorphous form, which had developed in the region of ancient Gandhara during the reign of the Kushanas, influenced Buddhist art in other Asian countries.