This paper explores what ideal textbooks for courses on Buddhist sculpture should aim to convey and in what manner they should be written. Textbooks for Buddhist sculpture courses at various levels should be able to ask or answer the following questions: (1) What form does an image take and how can it be effectively described in right words? (2) What is the identity of an image and what meaning was it intended to convey? (3) In what technical methods was it created? (4) In what space was it installed and in what ritual context was it used? (5) How did a group of images that share affinities in form, subject or function change in time? (6) In what manner did an image or a group of images relate to other aspects of contemporaneous Buddhist culture? (7) In what manner did an image or a group or images relate to historic or social aspects? (8) What was the place of a Buddhist image in the visual art tradition of a particular region? (9) What is the significance of a Buddhist image in the universal tradition of sculptural art? (10) How were various regional traditions of Buddhist art interrelated? (11) What kind of ideas underlay the creation or worship of an image in Buddhism? (12) How does a traditional Buddhist image relate to a contemporary visual practice? An examination of textbooks on Buddhist sculpture currently available or widely used in the Korean academia reveals that the majority of them fall far short of achieving the goals stated above. Some of them have particularly notable problems in inadequate visual analysis and careless use of language. This is inevitably related to the current state of the Buddhist art scholarship in Korea. Efforts for meticulous crafting of details in writing and visual analysis as well as attempting of innovative approaches will be essential for the creation of readable and inspiring textbooks for a new generation.