Illustration/Devdutt Pattanaik

In the early days of Buddhism, Buddha was represented by a symbol: a footprint or a wheel or a pot or a tree. Later, less than 2,000 years ago, we see the earliest images of the Buddha in the Gandhara region (modern Pakistan and Afghanistan) as a Greek god. Simultaneously, Buddha images started appearing in the Gangetic plains around Mathura, where red stone was used. Unlike the Gandharan Buddha, where the shoulders were covered with cloth, in Mathura, the upper garment was draped only over the left shoulder, suggesting the influence of the Brahmin thread that hung over the left shoulder. In Mathura, Buddha was made to sit on a lotus, with a serpent behind him.