This article is devoted to the problem of methodological approaches to the study of Buddhist art within the framework of art history that go beyond empirical and stylistic analysis. Based on methodological principles developed in the early 20th-century academic school of traditionalism, which emphasised the speci cs of language and the conceptual apparatus of religious teaching (the visual embodiment of which forms the locus of study), this article proposes a focus on the Buddhist philosophical concept of ῾ku᾽ ( tibet. sku, sanskr. kaya), meaning ‘a body’ - a term and concept that simultaneously open up many layers of meaning of of Buddhist art.