Buddha Shakyamuni – The Historical Buddha
  See it in the Museum
India and Nepal
Orientation 3
Display 2

ABS 161

 Code: ABS 161

  Country: Himalaya

  Style: Spiti Region

  Date: 1150 - 1250

  Dimensions in cm WxHxD: 3.7 x 7 x 1.5

  Materials: Copper alloy

Buddha Shakyamuni – The Historical Buddha

The Buddha is seated legs crossed in meditation on a throne supported by a pair of lions, his transparent religious garment leaving his right shoulder uncovered. With his right extended hand, he touches the ground before him while his left rests on his lap in contemplation. This posture refers to the episode of his victory over Mara, god of Death and illusion when, by touching the ground he took the Earth as a witness of his spiritual realisation.

The Buddha 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 patina demonstrates this statue was extensively used and touched during devotional practices.

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.