ABSTRACT
The features of a Buddha's image are the result of very ancient process that united three factors: the Eastern mythologies which are older that than Buddhism, its ability of adapting itself to local beliefs and its re-interpretations. After the emergence of the first statues representing the historical Buddha, the ideal of beauty concerning a being who attained the enlightenment was based on the ancient oriental "sciences", predominantly mental and marked by subtle energies. While the Western Aesthetics was arguing about idealization in art through its rationality, disregarding a "pagan and superstitious East", the Buddhist images were embodying mental states that the West only would regard in its modernity. Buddhist art conveys the ancestral and immutable legacy of mystical keys of consciousness and equilibrium.
keywords:
Buddhas; mythology; East; arts; beauty
