INTRODUCTORY COMMENTS:

As already mentioned, Gautama the Buddha, the founder of the Buddhist tradition, was probably an older contemporary of Vardhamana or Mahavira, and the Buddhist tradition like the Jain is, therefore, a product of the Indo-Shramanical period in the history of the subcontinent.  Like the Jains, the Buddhists did not accept the authority of the priesthood, the texts or the gods of the Brahmanical or Hindu traditions.  Again like the Jains, the primary focus of the tradition, at least in its earliest phases, was on the life of meditation.

NARRATIVE/THEMATIC EXPOSITION:

The Buddhist narrative makes an interesting contrast with both the Brahmanical/Hindu (Shiva and Vishnu mythology)  and the Jain.  If the Shaivite and Vaishnava mythologies focus on the luxurious and exuberant prolixity of the manifest world, and if the Jain narrative focusses on the ascetic and radical withdrawal from that exuberant world, then the Buddhist tradition is well-named when it characterizes itself as the "middle way."  The founder, Gotama or Gautama, is born into the worldly family of a local prince and is encouraged to indulge in the rich resources of the secular world.  He realizes  early along that such worldly indulgence is foolish and seeks, instead, the path to spiritual enlightenment.  At first in his quest for spiritual understanding, he pursues the opposite extreme from his early period of sensuous indulgence.  That is, he follows an extreme ascetic life on analogy with the excesses of Jain withdrawal from ordinary life.  Instead of spiritual enlightenment, however, he nearly kills himself because of his extreme ascetic practices.  He comes to recognize that the extremes of sensuous indulgence and radical renunciation are both dangerous  paths that ought to be avoided.  He discovers a new "middle way" based upon the four noble truths and the eightfold path.

ICONOGRAPHY:

Like the Jain images but unlike the Shiva and Vishnu images, the representations of the Buddha ("the awakened one") are focussed primarily on disciplined meditation, but unlike the Jain image of meditation, the Buddhist focus on meditation is interestingly different.  In the early centuries before the image of the Buddha was represented anthropomorphically, the founder is depicted in terms of an empty throne or as footrpints, both of which stress the absence as well as the presence of the Buddha.  The "thus-gone-one" (that  is, the Tathagata, the one who has experienced Nirvana or "release")  is no longer physically present but his doctrine of the Middle Way, the Dharma, is always symbolically  present in the midst of ordinary life.  In later centuries when the Buddha is represented anthropomorphically, he is a full-figured male image who is completely relaxed and at peace with himself (except for those wonderful Gandhara representations of what he must have looked like during his phase of extreme asceticism).

INTERPRETATION:

The Buddha images, whether early or late, whether symbolic or anthropomorphic, are neither lushly sensuous like the representations of Shiva and Vishnu, nor rigidly austere and forbidding like the representations of the Tirthankara-s and Jina-s.  The various Buddha images (the empty throne beneath the tree of enlightenment, the footprints, the Buddha in meditation, or the Buddha calling upon the earth to be his witness) are always carefully balanced, symmetrical, and relaxed, giving a sense of calm and peaceful repose.
There is neither the overwhelming presence of a finite world to be overcome nor the superhuman strength of a world-conqueror.  There is, rather, the quiet confidence of someone who has come to understand the meaning of life and is willing to smile a bit regarding metaphysical or moral questions that have no simple answer.  This "balanced enlightenment of the Buddha" is a refreshing and new "middle way" in early Indian spirituality.