Tibetan Buddha Sakyamuni Statuette, 19th Century

Description

Prince Gautama Siddhartha was the son of Mayadevi and Suddhodana, king of the Sakya of Kapilavastu. At court, young Siddhartha … more Prince Gautama Siddhartha was the son of Mayadevi and Suddhodana, king of the Sakya of Kapilavastu. At court, young Siddhartha led a joyful and carefree life, married Yasodhara and had a son, Rahula. On his way out of the palace, until then his exclusive home, he met an old man, then a sick man and finally a dead man. Those encounters showed him that there was no escape for anyone, king or pauper, from the suffering of existence. He finally met a mendicant monk and decided to leave the palace, abandoning everything he owned in order to find a spiritual path leading to liberation from suffering. For six years he dedicated himself to extreme asceticism on the banks of the river Nairanjara; finally, not having obtained the hoped-for fruit, he renounced those practices and sat under the bodhi tree in Bodhgaya, resolved not to leave it until enlightenment. Mara, the lord of demons, tried to tempt him with the three chief passions. To lure him into ignorance, he told him that his father was dead and that the kingdom had fallen into the hands of the evil Devadatta; to win him with desire, he sent his daughters to seduce him; to overwhelm him with hatred, he unleashed upon him hosts of demons, monsters and spirits that were his armies, but none of this disturbed his contemplation. Siddhartha then touched the earth to bear witness to his victory. Then, cleansed of all obscurity, he attained awakening, the knowledge of the true condition of all phenomena and became Buddha. The Buddha then went to the deer park at Sarnath, near Benares where he expounded the first teaching for the benefit of human beings. In order to show them the impermanence of all phenomena, after becoming seriously ill, the Buddha stretched out on his right side and in the posture of a lion displayed Parinirvana.
The statue is in fact shown with one hand open towards the front meditating, trying not to react to the demon's demands and ambushes. The statue is a 19th century Tibetan bronze statue depicting the Buddha in the meditation posture. He is shown with a serious, almost aseptic expression, demonstrating concentration to rise above human nature.
This statue is ideal for inspiring décor and for lovers of Asian art. less