Brussels Buddha

In this statue, the seated Buddha is attended by Brahma and Indra, as well as two Bodhisattvas. The statue is remarkable in that it is one of the rare Gandhara Buddhist statues to bear a dedication with a date. However, the advanced character of the iconography has led some authors to support a later date, based on a supposed second Kanishka era starting a century later or a theory according to which the hundreds would have been omitted from the date. According to Gérard Fussman, who analyzed the paleography of the inscription, there is no doubt that "Year 5" corresponds to the era of Kanishka I, as the shapes of several letters are typical of that period. The language of the inscription is a mix of Prakrit and Sanskrit. This dated sculpture suggests that the Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara was already at a very advanced stage of sophistication at the beginning of the Kushan period, in the early 2nd century CE, implying the existence of a long preliminary tradition leading up to it. ==Other examples==