Re: The Buddha's racial appearance

Hi Thomas,

> I wonder any one in this group knows the Buddha's racial appearance
> according to the Pali texts. He was born in the Nepal region. The
> inhabitants in the region at that time may be closer to the Himalayan
> race.

As a representative of Ariya higher varna, Buddha must have looked like
like Slav, Osset, or Persian (Iranian-Afghan).

Genetic analysis shows that the higher varnas in India still are much
closer genetically to Europeans, than the lower varnas.

http://www.genomenewsnetwork.org/articles/05_01/Indo-European.shtml
https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/atlas.html

Probably the earliest Gandhara and Mathura images preserve his features:

http://www.answers.com/topic/buddhahead-jpg
http://www.gandhara.com.au/gandhara_showcase5.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:MathuraBodhisattvaSide.JPG

Regards,
Dmytro