Snail haircut

A person familiar with Buddhist iconography can perfectly distinguish which Buddha or Bodhisattva is portrayed. Studying the facial characteristics or even the robes and jewelry can be enough to place a Buddha statue in place and period.

People don't need such an extensive knowledge to recognise a Buddhist statue. The serene expression of South-East Asian Buddhas, the Chinese Happy Buddha's belly, the fierce looks of Tibetan guardian gods, ...

According to the Buddha legend, upon his birth 32 marks and 80 lesser marks of a great man were discovered. There also exists a list of 108 characteristics. Some of these features, being noted in one of these list, are visible and different Buddha figures. Others like a fragrant smell and a golden radiant body are difficult to represent.

Buddha would have had : long and slender fingers and toes (sometimes all fingers and toes have the same length), webbed toes and fingers, a small knob on his forehead symbolizing knowledge, long ears for long life, a flame/halo of enlightenment, ...

Not all of these characteristics are literally from the 32 marks revealed after his birth. During the centuries Buddha images have been depicted in different ways but with a certain consistency.

For 300 years after Buddha's death there were no images made of him. In Buddhism no god is venerated, Buddhism is a way of living a philosophy. This thinking changed and as humans always tend to be in need of more practical ways for beliefs and religions, images of Buddha were being created. The first statues made of Buddha have a clear Greek influence.

Alexander The Great had a Great Empire in the 3 Century BC. He fought his Persian wars and even had some campaigns in the Indian subcontinent. Now India is of course the home of Buddhism and when the first Buddha statues were sculpted, the Hellenistic influence was clearly visible. These prime Buddhist images (Gandhara period) had strong torsos, almost Greek style clothes, moustaches and Curly Greek hair.

In Buddhist tradition the hairstyle of the Buddha is called referred to as the snail or shell hairstyle. In Sri Lanka the Buddhist tradition tells a story where Buddha was in meditation. In order to protect the Buddha from sun strokes and rain a few hundred snails crawled up on top the his head and protected him. In the end the snails died and Buddha kept his hairstyle like this, respecting the rescuing animals.

Of course this is just a story and according to several scientists, this type of hair style was a development out of the Greek hair style:

1) Apollo Belvedere, 350 BC

2) Buddha (Gandhara period), 1st Century BC

3) Leshan Buddha , 8Th Century AD