Buddha Offering Protection

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This Buddha image embodies the qualities of inner radiant calm and stillness, the products of supreme wisdom. He dispenses reassurance and protection to his followers with a raised hand held in abhaya-mudra, the ‘fear not’ gesture. The Buddha is robed in the simple uncut cloth of a monk, gracefully drawn around the body so as to define form, to create an image that is at once ethereal and sensuous. A state of Buddhahood is defined iconographically by the presence of a series of auspicious markings (lakshanas): here we see the attenuated earlobes, protruding skull and webbing between the fingers. Taken together these features, both natural and supernatural, denote preordained sanctity and a state of Buddhahood. Few metal Buddha images survived the collapsed of monastic Buddhism in the late 12th century, and most that are preserved did so in Tibet, where they had been spirited away for safety in the medieval period. Click here to read a discussion of recent conservation research on this object, Enlightened Technology: Radiographing an Image of the Buddha.

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met's collection of Asian art—more than 35,000 objects, ranging in date from the third millennium B.C. to the twenty-first century—is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world. Each of the many civilizations of Asia is represented by outstanding works, providing an unrivaled experience of the artistic traditions of nearly half the world.

Metropolitan Museum of Art