Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Buddha Calling the Earth to Witness
Not on view
This meditating Buddha was recovered in the northeastern province of Buriram, near the Cambodian border, and may be the product of Dvaravati-influenced workshops in that region. The early moated settlement of Muang Fai is one possibility. He is seated in the full-lotus posture, his right hand, in bhumisparshamudra, touches the ground to summon the earth goddess to witness his resistance to the temptations cast in his way immediately prior to his awakening. The sculpture is among the earliest local depictions of this iconography, which became ubiquitous in later Southeast Asian Buddhist art.
cat. no. 113
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