Though the ‘Ud?yana image’ exist in the literature, we have different reality because there is no substantial evidence in India while we can find several similar stories. However, Xuanzang heard a story of a Ud?yana image that had been said to be delivered from Kausambi to Khotan when he visited the latter in 644. This Ud?yana image was moved to Phema within Khotan after doing a miracle at Rauraka[曷勞落迦] within the same land of Khotan. This statue was said to have a marvel power to the effect that one could completely cure his or her lesions when he or she attach gold leaf sheets to the same parts of the statue as his or her lesions. The place which Xuanzang referred to as Rauraka was highly likely to be Rawak temple site, and the gold leaf sheets on the thigh and knee sites discovered from the standing figure of Buddha in Rawak temple site also suggest its close relationship with Ud?yana image. Judging from matters as they stand, Ud?yana image from Kausambi that Xuanzang carried on his way back to Tang in 645 would be in the same form as the standing figure of Buddha of Rawak temple site, and the unique shapes of the ‘Ud?yana image’ handed down to the present are highly likely to have originated from the form of the standing figure of Buddha here in Khotan.
If Xuanzang’s record is true, Ud?yana image came to exist in Khotan, a more excellent country than Kausambi, where it could not stay despite the fact that it was the first place of the foundation of Ud?yana image. It seemed that Khotan had been already recognized as a ‘significant place where India’ s auspicious image stayed’ when Xuanzang visited there. In the state-founding myth of Khotan, another auspicious king, Asoka appears. Of course, the whole story would have been devised by Khotan people in order to give authority to the nation, and the security of the legitimacy of Khotan as the center of Buddhism could have serve as an important factor.
Khotan recognized and embodied the ‘Ud?yana image’ that had existed only in legends as an auspicious image. Since then, Ud?yana image have just been copied and extended only with its rimples in a special form while losing not only its original identity but also its mysterious powers. In other words, Ud?yana image has left only the ‘Y-shaped’ rimples, being separated from its original context. We have called them ‘Ud?yana style rimples’ so far without any great meaning, and after all those standing figures of Buddha with ‘Y-shaped’ rimples have got the label of ‘Ud?yana style’ in separation with the ‘Ud?yana image’.