Full-fleshed Mathura style

• The Gandharan images showed the Buddha standing or seated, his robes in the Graeco-Roman tradition of drapery in more or less realistic folds. The hair was usually in wavy lines and the Buddha's cranial bump was a bun. Comparisons were made with the Greek 'Apollo'.
• The standing Mathura Buddha was thick-set, copying the popular nature spirit of the time but wearing monastic robes with the right shoulder bare. Another posture is that of the seated yogi with crossed legs (full lotus) and hands laid in the lap, though sometimes, as more commonly with standing figures, the right hand is raised. The robes, worn over the left shoulder and arm, cover part of the chest and most of the lower part of the body. On the head a twisted coil of hair or bun corresponds to the later cranial bump.
• Early Mathura Buddhas have been found in Gandhara while Gandharan influence on Mathura appears late, so it can be concluded that the first Buddha images were in the Indian Mathura style.

• A coin of king Kaniska (CE 100) top-left, shows a standing Gandharan style figure with the Bactrian inscription 'Boddo'. This is the earliest datable image of the Buddha and its use by Kaniska supports scriptural references to his involvement in Buddhism; the errection of several monuments and his assembling the third council in Kashmir. The naturalistic hairstyle persisted on the Gandharan images whereas Mathura began to represent the Buddha with 'snail shell' curls turning to the right - this style eventually prevailed.