Window mode follows your eyes with your camera, in this browser only: no picture or position leaves your device.
Buddha Shakyamuni with Attendants
India (Uttar Pradesh, Mathura region)
Kushan period, 2nd century
- Medium
- Sandstone
- Classification
- Sculpture
- Dimensions
- 35.9 × 26.4 × 8.6 cm (14 1/8 × 10 3/8 × 3 3/8 in.)
- Culture
- Mathura
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of Asia
- Credit line
- James W. and Marilynn Alsdorf Collection. Gift of Marilynn Alsdorf
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
This stele epitomizes the distinctive style of the early Mathura school of Buddhist sculpture, characterized by its mottled red sandstone and such features as the Buddha’s twisted topknot, the diaphanous garment worn over one shoulder, and the supple modeling of his body. Here, the Buddha is portrayed seated in vajraparyanka (vajra posture) upon a simhasana (lion throne). He is flanked on either side by attendants bearing fly-whisks, while vidyadharas (celestials) hover overhead. The tree branches splayed out behind the Buddha’s aureole invoke his enlightenment under the Bodhi tree at Bodh Gaya.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
