GANDHARA:

     The city of Gandhara gained great importance because of its location. It is located in the area known today as Pakistan and Afghanistan and had many times before been a site of conquest and had many different kinds of people living there. It was right at the center of trade routes connecting Tacila with Patalputra. Merchants used to come to this city while traveling and would frequently leave money behind for the people of the town. The people of the town were great artisans with many influences throughout the years from all of the different peoples that tried to conquer them. Under the leadership of Kanishka all of the art came to be centered on Buddhism. Centers of art in Gandhara included Buner, Begram, Paitavam, and Hadda. The final and most important center of art was Purushapaura, which is where Kanishka and the other rulers of the time ruled. All of these areas produced many images of Buddha. This is a very important point because up to this period images of the Buddha were not created. What also began to be created were images of bodhisattvas. The people showed a great deal of respect to a bodhisattva because it was a person who had reached enlightenment and was out of the life and death cycle. A bodhisattva's main job now was to help others to obtain salvation.
Gandhara
     The Gandhara School of sculpture is based in part on Classical models of Greco-Roman schools. The sculpture tried very hard to portray the physical beauty of humans in its sculpture. This allowed for a much more real appeal to come from the Gandhara sculptures. This was not always the case though because if they were trying to convey a certain spiritual message they would manipulate the body into whatever form they needed. The most common of pieces found in the area from the Kushan period were those representing scenes from the life of Sakyamuni. Some of these scenes included birth, enlightenment, first sermon, and death. The birth scene is typically depicted as with the mother, Maya, holding a tree branch.
     The material used by the people of Gandhara during the Kushan period was mostly schist stone, which is gray and contains a little mica, which makes it sparkle. Sometimes this material was made to look more precious by being covered in gold leaf. It also helped to give the sculpture a luster in dark interiors.