THAILAND Lopburi
Khmer style
Standing crowned Buddha
12th-13th centuries
bronze 86.4 cm
Gift of the Art Gallery Society 2002
156.2002
This regal figure of a Buddha is in the style of the Khmers, who had their capital at Angkor. Here, the Buddha is depicted as a cakravartin (world ruler), with the dress and ornaments of a king. The Buddha wears elaborate jewellery and a distinctive conical crown. He holds his hands in vitarka mudra, the gesture of philosophical debate and discussion. The exposed palms of his hands reveal wheel-marks, one of the 32 bodily marks of an Enlightened Being. |
Buddhist art of Southeast Asia Buddhism is the major religion in many of countries of Southeast Asia. The Theravada tradition is prevalent in Burma, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. Theravada is essentially a monastic tradition, supported by a lay community. Its scriptural inspiration is drawn from the Pali Canon, or Tripitaka, which is accepted as the earliest surviving record of the Buddha's teachings. These teachings centre upon the four noble truths, the core tenets of Buddhism: the truth of suffering, the truth of desire as the cause of this suffering,
the truth of overcoming this suffering, and the truth of the eight-fold path. In turn, the eight-fold path may be seen as a method or practice for alleviating this suffering.
The eight-fold path encourages the development of right speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness and concentration. Meditation, the central practice of Buddhism, is used to strengthen one's adherence to this path. Its importance is conveyed by the numerous images of the Buddha seated in the posture of meditation. It may be recalled that the Buddha attained Enlightenment through the practice of meditation.
The Mahayana tradition, on the other hand, is better known in Vietnam but was also practised in Indonesia and Cambodia. Mahayana professes to make the goal of Buddhahood available to a greater number of people. It emphasises the ideal of the bodhisattva - a 'Buddha-in-waiting' or one who, out of compassion, postpones his or her own attainment of Nirvana in order to help others achieve Enlightenment. In many Southeast Asian countries, the king is considered a bodhisattva, or indeed a cakravartin, or 'world ruler'. The term is literally 'wheel turner' and associates the sovereignty of the king with the idea of a universal monarch, an epithet of the Buddha. For this reason images of the Buddha in Southeast Asia often appear as images of a king, conveying this correspondence.
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