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Eight Great Events from the Life of the Buddha

Bronze-colored sculpture of a slim Buddha standing, rings etched on his body. Around him are seven small vignettes featuring a similar figure in various poses.
CC0 Public Domain Designation

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  • Bronze-colored sculpture of a slim Buddha standing, rings etched on his body. Around him are seven small vignettes featuring a similar figure in various poses.

Date:

Pala period, 10th century

Artist:

India
Bihar

About this artwork

Narrative events are depicted on all sides of this stele. A miniaturized scene at the lower left of the base, below the central Buddha’s feet, shows his miraculous birth from his mother’s side. Above this is the Buddha’s descent from heaven, where he went to preach to his dead mother, and farther up, the moment of his enlightenment, with his proper right hand touching the earth to witness. The upper left scene depicts his first sermon at the Deer Park in Sarnath.
On the right side are scenes representing the miracles that the Buddha performed at Shravasti, including the gift of honey from a monkey—shown in miniature at the lower right corner of the platform near his gift-giving hand—and the Buddha’s taming of a wild elephant, by his left foot. The scene of the parinirvana tops the stele: the Buddha’s life flame is extinguished as he reaches nirvana.

Status

On View, Gallery 140

Department

Arts of Asia

Title

Eight Great Events from the Life of the Buddha

Place

Bihar (Object made in)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

901 CE–1000

Medium

Phyllite

Dimensions

76.2 × 44.5 × 17.8 cm (30 × 17 1/2 × 7 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of the Alsdorf Foundation

Reference Number

2019.727

IIIF Manifest  The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.

https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/130676/manifest.json

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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