Standing with one leg slightly bent, this commanding image of the Buddha was created by artists at Mathura, an important center of art in the kingdom of the Gupta monarchs (ca. 320–485). The artists selectively combined elements from earlier traditions to create the quintessential Gupta Buddha image. From the Greco-Roman tradition of Gandhara, Gupta sculptors borrowed the monastic robe that covered both shoulders, transforming its folds into a network of strings; from their own earlier Mathura tradition they retained the sensuous, full-bodied form of the Buddha. The sensitive handling of the stone reveals the ridge created at the waist by the draped, saronglike undergarment whose lower edge peeks out at the ankles. The Buddha's left hand holds the folds of the robe, while the right hand was originally raised in the gesture of protection. Despite its missing head, this is a singularly important image that conveys the power and majesty of the Gupta style and would have been the focus of veneration within a major Buddhist shrine.
The Gupta-style Buddha was a source of inspiration for the entire Buddhist world, including land-bound Nepal and Tibet, the island of Sri Lanka, and the Southeast Asian countries of Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Java. Each area took the Gupta ideal and developed it along its own lines. Even Chinese pilgrims to India carried portable bronze Gupta Buddhas back to their homeland.
