No Buddha statues were made for 400-500 years after his time

His image is so commonplace that you could believe it must always have existed — yet for six centuries after his death, he was never once depicted in human form.

The statue was made in the 2nd or 3rd century and although Buddha lived in the 6th and 5th centuries before Christ, this is still a quite early statue. Statues of the "enlightened one" were not made until the 1st century AD. For the first four hundred years after his death Buddha was represented ...

Initially the emphasis was on ... subjects in themselves in Northern Buddhist art, rather than just attendants of the Buddha, and by the late first millennium came to predominate. During the 2nd to 1st century BCE, sculptures became more explicit, representing episodes ...

Since the beginning of the serious study of the history of Buddhist art in the 1890s, the earliest phase, lasting until the 1st century CE, has been described as aniconic; the Buddha was only represented through symbols such as an empty throne, Bodhi tree, a riderless horse with a parasol floating ...

According to the ancient scriptures (the Pali Canon) it is in this mudra in which Siddhartha Gautama achieved the complete unsurpassed enlightenment and thus becomes the Buddha. That’s what this posture and hand gesture essentially symbolizes. After Siddharta had lived for years in severe asceticism, completely emaciated and close to death, he came to the understanding of the middle way. He strengthens his body somewhat by eating solid food and resolves to meditate under the bodhi tree ntil he either attains the complete liberation from suffering, or dies.

Agriculture took over from cattle breeding and the earth goddess rose to prominence. We see evidence of these goddesses in the proliferation of yakshi sculptures (discussed below). By the sixth century, northern India was divided into a number of small principalities.

These influences were rapidly absorbed however by the vigorous Chinese culture, and a strongly Chinese particularism develops from that point. Buddhism arrived in China around the 1st century CE, and introduced new types of art into China, particularly in the area of statuary.

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“Wow, lost for 400-500 years, they said? Looks pretty new to me!” said a Thai Facebook user. “Anyone can tell that these images aren’t 100 years old. They all look below 50 years old,” added another user. However, some other users argued that the reason behind the buddha images looking new is attributed to the fact that they were not exposed to oxygen when buried underneath the river hence their coppers did not undergo the oxidation reaction, a process in which a chemical substance changes because of the addition of oxygen.