Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Enthroned Buddha
India, probably Goli stupa, Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh
Not on view
This Buddha sits on a throne-seat supported by lions that gaze at two long-horned ibex or deer—a reference to the Buddha’s first sermon at Sarnath. The Andhra style of Buddha imagery is a result of cultural exchange across the Indian subcontinent: Sculptural images of the Buddha in the round appeared in the south in the third century CE, at least a century after versions in the north. The Buddhist art of the Deccan was also impacted by pre-Buddhist as well as non-Indian art, both the long-established sculptural tradition of the yaksha, or nature deity, and Roman aesthetic influences stimulated by an upsurge in Indo-Roman sea trade.
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