Earliest known Buddha statues is an elephant from India dates back 2,300 years

An elephant statue believed to have been sculpted around 2,300 years ago has been discovered by archaeologists in eastern India. The monument, which is carved from granite and measures around 3 feet (1 meters) high, is similar to other Buddhist elephant statues that can be seen all across the state of Odisha.

The statue was discovered in April at a village on the banks of the Daya River in the Puri District of Odisha by historian Anil Dhir and other members of an archaeological team from the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH). “We were surveying the Daya River Valley to document its heritage,” Dhir wrote in an email to Live Science. “The ancient Buddhism that once flourished here is well represented in this region by artifacts.”

A Buddhist temple’s architectural components were among the other buried artifacts the team discovered near the settlement, he continued.

According to Dhir, the elephant statue is strikingly reminiscent of one discovered in Dhauli, also known as Dhaulagiri, a historic Buddhist center located about 12 miles (19 kilometers) upstream. The age of such statue has been put between 272 and 231 B.C.

According to Dhir, the elephant is a common Buddhist image that may be found on numerous Buddhist structures.

According to the INTACH release, the recently discovered elephant statue was discovered close to a pillar made of the reddish clay substance laterite and other stone blocks: Another elephant statue was also found in the village of Kaima in Odisha’s Jajpur District, along with similar finds.

Elephants were significant royal animals in ancient India and represented the monsoon rains and fertility, according to art historian Christian Luczanits of SOAS at the University of London in an interview with Live Science.

The elephant was also the mythological animal ridden by the pre-Buddhist god Indra, who was recognized in early Indian Buddhism as a pupil of the Buddha and named Sakka (also written akra), according to Peter Harvey, a historian of Buddhism and “faith advisor” at York St. John University in the U.K.

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