Buddhist Imagery

As with the founders of other major world religions, so far as we know, no Buddhist disciple ever sat down during the lifetime of the Teacher and produced a likeness of Siddartha Gautama, as the historical Buddha was called. Thus in proposing to discuss Buddhist imagery there is no possibility of describing, in the sense of portraiture, what he and his followers “looked like.” All this, to follow out Buddhist notions of escape from attachment to the phenomenal world, has long since passed into Nirvana. If the light of attachment has gone out, then there is no longer anything to see.