Buddhism was founded by Siddhartha Gautama. He left his throne as a royal prince in ancient India, which is now located Nepal, in search of enlightenment. In Bodh-Gaya (today in Bihar, North-Eastern India), he meditated and fasted for 49 days and nights at the base of the Bodhi tree. From then on, Siddhartha Gautama was referred to as the Buddha - "The Enlightened One". In the 2nd or 3rd century AD, ancient Indian sculptors during the Kushan dynasty, Gandhara region, sculpted a stone sculpture of the fasting Buddha. Sculptors portrayed the starving Buddha seated in a meditation stance as in a withered state with the body being reduced to a skeleton frame. This Statue of Siddharta is popularly known as the Fasting Buddha. Gautama Buddha was shown here as a yogic ascetic, sat in a meditation stance, and as a slender and emaciated person due to his fasting for 49 days, according to the observations on the sculpture! The sculpture's foundation depicts a scene of his followers praying for him. Individual anatomical aspects of this sculpture's surface suggests that the ancient Indian artists from the Gandhara region had a good understanding of human anatomy, particularly surface anatomy and musculoskeletal aspects. They knew the approximate size and position of the bones, joints, and muscles, as well as their approximate insertion places!
Indian History
