Sarnath: Buddha, 5th Century A.D. Allahabad, Municipal Museum

Photographer: Arthur Llewellyn Basham

New Open Research Repository launching soon. This site will be offline from 5 to 9pm, Monday 20 May, while the new site goes live!

Sarnath: Buddha, 5th Century A.D. Allahabad, Municipal Museum

This image is provided for research purposes only and must not be reproduced without the prior permission of the Archives Program, Australian National University.

Download (15.14 MB)

Collections	Arthur Llewellyn Basham
Title:	Sarnath: Buddha, 5th Century A.D. Allahabad, Municipal Museum
Author(s):	Photographer: Arthur Llewellyn Basham
Keywords:	Gupta Period;Sarnath Architect;stone sculpture;mounted transparency set
Series/Report no.:	Basham Collection
Description:	This is perhaps the most often imitated of the Buddha images and is also probably the most famous to western eyes as it symbolizes the very essence of Buddhism in a single sculpture, The Buddha type is the yoga-ascetic holding the hands in the dharmachakra mudra or Turning of the Wheel of the Law sign and calmly meditating over the cycle of life, Barely visible on the platform beneath the Buddha are six figures in relief depicting some of Buddha's followers, Occasionally, these six, or sometimes five, are shown flanking an aniconic symbol of Buddha on the platform relief, this occurs when the seated Buddha above is to be understood as being in the Deer Park giving his first sermon where it is said, 'he set the Wheels of the Law in motion,' A stone of much finer grain has been used in this sculpture since Sarnath had a good deposit of chunar sandstone for its workshops as opposed to the red sandstone of coarser grain used at Mathura, On this account, a very polished carving could be executed in this medium, and outlines could be made softer while geometric underdrawing could be easily hidden,
URI:	http://hdl.handle.net/1885/163680
Other Identifiers:	ANUA 682-915

Download

File	Description	Size	Format	Image
ANUA_682_0915.tif		15.14 MB	TIFF

Show full item record