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Buddhism evolved the concept of a Buddha of the Future, Maitreya, depicted in art both as a Buddha clad in a monastic robe and as a princely bodhisattva before enlightenment. Gandharan artists made use of both stone and stucco to produce such images, which were placed in nichelike shrines around the stupa of a monastery.
Elena PakhoutovaSenior Curator, Himalayan ArtRubin Museum of Art. Buddhist culture is highly symbolic and employs images to convey deep meanings related to its core concepts, goals, and practices. The most recognizable images are those of the Buddha, various deities, and portraits that represent ideals, stories, and meanings formalized in ...
The Buddha—that is, the “Enlightened One”—lived nearly 2500 years ago in northern India. His followers have always seen his life as a shining example to all, but what “really happened” is now impossible to know for certain.
- From The Dream of Queen Māyā to The Great Renunciation
- From The Search For Truth to Enlightenment
- From The First Sermon to The Parinirvāṇa
- Bibliography
The Buddha's mother, Queen Māyā (sometimes Mahāmāyā, "Great Illusion"), dreamt that a silvery-white elephant, holding a white lotus flower in its trunk, entered her right side. Brahmanic priests asked to interpret the dream foretold the birth of a son who would become either a great monarch or a sage. This miracle is portrayed only on early Indian ...
Siddhārtha practiced yogic austerities almost to the point of death in his supreme effort to gain higher states of consciousness. Artists in the Gandhāra region sculpted an image of this emaciated figure in what would be called today a superrealistic style. Every bone, vein, and hollowed surface of his body is shown in glaring detail. The Chan scho...
The Buddha delivered his first sermon at the Deer Park in Sārnāth. Images showing him with the "turning the Wheel of the Dharma" gesture (dharmacakra-mudrā) refer to this event. The importance of this gesture is that the Buddha is setting in motion the four noble truths and revealing the middle path by which anyone can transcend the sufferings of l...
Cummings, Mary. The Lives of the Buddha in the Art and Literature of Asia. Ann Arbor: University of MichiganPress, 1982. Dehejia, Vidya. "On Modes of Visual Narration in Early Buddhist Art." Art Bulletin71 (1990): 374–392. Dehejia, Vidya. "Aniconism and the Multivalence of Emblems." Ars Orientalis21 (1991): 45–66. Dehejia, Vidya. Discourse in Early...
Gandhara art is the Buddhist art that originated and flourished in the Gandhara region from first century B.C to sixth century A.D. The art maintained a goal to disseminate the Buddhist faith, with particular emphasis on the life of the Buddha.
Gandhara. (a cosmopolitan region with cultural and economic ties to India), western Asia, and the Hellenistic world. To represent stories of the Buddha’s life, Gandharan artists combined the visual vocabulary of Greco-Roman art with Indian Buddhist concepts and iconography.
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These images constitute the core of the category of “Buddhist art” as it is commonly understood, but there is a significant difference between how such objects are viewed by Buddhist practitioners and how they are viewed by art historians and scholars of religion.
