People start running from their birth till they die. They don't stop, they don't sit by the side of the road under a tree.
To me the statues of Buddha and Mahavira in the East, sitting in a lotus posture under a tree, do not mean anything historical. They mean something far more significant.
These are the people who have stopped running. These are the people who have stepped out of the road on which the whole procession of humanity is going.