an interesting post today, @slowwalker, continuing the theme of Buddha statuary.
It's interesting that Buddha forbade making images of him but the peoples' need to be like other cultures prevailed. At first, statues were carved out of images of Greek gods which gave them a more westernized appearance, but gradually the distinctive Chinese and Korean depictions emerged.
I think the Buddha images were made for the purposes of the rulers as you suggest.
Good photos today, my friend
thank you for comment
In my guess, people made Buddha statue for an explanation of Buddhist world in the basis of ontology.
later I' d like to post on that
Oh, that would be really interesting, @slowwalker