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 fragment: flowering vase of plenty
India, Bharhut Great Stupa, Satna district, Madhya Pradesh
Not on view
This upper section of a stupa enclosure railing pillar is filled with a wide-mouthed vase brimming with lush plants. On the upper frieze a pair of geese (hamsas), holding flower buds in their beaks, are flanked by blue lotuses and fish. The design’s symmetry and stylized blooms recall West Asian imagery popular in northern India during the preceding two centuries. However, the wide-mouthed vase is purely Indian in form. The surge of plant life emerging from a five-pronged form seen here is associated with the primordial man (purusha). This and other expressions of auspiciousness were absorbed into early Buddhist imagery as signs of greatness; the Buddha was understood to have thirty-two such signs (lakshanas).
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