Early Buddhist Art and the Theory of Aniconism

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, European and Indian scholars were puzzled by the absence of anthropomorphic representations of the historical Buddha Śākyamuni in the earliest surviving Buddhist art. Early Buddhist art, it was assumed, either avoided Buddha images entirely, or favored the use of symbols to refer to the Buddha or important events in the Buddha's life. For example, the depiction of a specific tree in early stone reliefs was interpreted to signify the Buddha's enlightenment beneath the bodhi tree at Bodh Gaya (fig. 5). Similarly, portrayals of the wheel representing Buddhist law were often thought to be symbolic representations of the Buddha's first sermon at Sarnath (fig. 1). This supposed practice of either avoiding images of the Buddha or using symbols as substitutes for Buddha images became known as “aniconism.”