This thesis focuses on a forty-three piece collection of Gandhara sculpture in the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada. Although individual pieces of the ROM's Gandhara sculpture are widely known to scholars, much of the collection has never been published. This is the first time the ROM sculptures have been described and analyzed as a collection.

The thesis is organized into two parts. Part one includes chapters on Gandhara's ancient history, physical geography, and the history of the Buddha image in ancient India. Particular emphasis is placed on the era of the Kushan empire from the 1st to 4th century AD when the school of Gandhara sculpture achieved its highest levels of production and craftsmanship.

Part two is a complete catalogue of the collection of forty-three sculptures, with photographic plates, physical descriptions of each object, museum accession numbers, and detailed commentary on the features and significance of each image.