The face of the Buddha, c. 3rd cent., C.E., stucco, from Hadda (once a teeming city and was one of the leading monasteries of Central Asia, was totally forgotten until its ruins were rediscovered in the 19th cent.)

This life-sized head was part of a full-length figure.  It was conceived by the sculptors of the Gandhara school in realistic as well as spiritual terms, the compassion of his quest on behalf of humanity softening the remoteness that he attained in Nirvana.  In the regions of Hadda and Taxila artists evolved a technique of working in stucco, using methods imported via Iran from the eastern Mediterranean. Buddhists seem to have come to Hadda about the 1st century C.E. Stucco sculpture reached its peak About the 3rd century but because of its fragility compared with stone there are few in-tact examples.