Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Railing pillar medallion: veneration of the Dharma-wheel (dharmacakra)
India, Bharhut Great Stupa, Madhya Pradesh
Not on view
The Dharma-wheel, the symbol of the Buddha’s teachings—here celebrated as a gift by its donors—has been central to Buddhist practice from its beginnings. The Lalitavistara, an early Sanskrit text recounting the life of the Buddha, describes its veneration: “It was an exquisite wheel adorned with all kinds of jewels. . . . It had a hub, a rim, and a thousand spokes. It was adorned with flower garlands, lattices of gold, tassels with bells[, and] various marks of auspiciousness, beautifully wrapped in divine fabrics and dyed in different colors. It was strewn with flowers of the heavens . . . and rubbed with perfumed ointments” (translated by the Dharma-chakra Translation Committee).
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