Stone slab with the historical Buddha Shakyamuni
  See it in the Museum
Outside garden
Orientation 2
Wall object 1

ABS 245

 Code: ABS 245

  Country: Tibet

  Style:

  Date: 1500 - 1600

  Dimensions in cm WxHxD: 55 x 80 x 3

  Materials: Stone carving

Stone slab with the historical Buddha Shakyamuni

This stone slab represents the historical Buddha Shakyamuni seated legs crossed in meditation on a lotus seat. Wearing the triple robe of the renunciants, his right hand is raised in the gesture of protection or absence of fear while his left rests on his lap in contemplation. He is endowed with all the distinctive marks and signs of a “great being:” short curly hair, a cranial protuberance (ushnisha), a curl of hair between the eyebrows (urna), elongated earlobes, and three marks on the throat, and so on.
The custom of engraving rock-cliffs, stone boulders and stone slabs is a very ancient tradition on the Tibetan plateau.

A Buddha is an “Enlightened One”, awakened to the true nature of existence. He has transcended is human condition and is “no longer a man, nor a god”. He has reached nirvana– “the extinction” of desire and karma – and he is free from samsara, the endless cycle of existence and suffering. A Buddha generally appears as a renunciant, devoid of ornaments.