Buddha offering protection

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The production of cast-metal images marked a new stage in Buddhist devotional practice. Rituals and texts for their care and worship became regular features of monastic life by the middle of the first millennium. This bronze Buddha represents the later development of Deccan Buddhist imagery, which grew stylistically out of the stone sculpting tradition. This is seen in the body’s symmetrical frontality and the drapery’s curvilinear folds. The Buddha has traces of an inscription on the pedestal that names a monastery—otherwise unrecorded—and a donor. The script firmly dates this icon to the fifth-century Deccan, in all likelihood the Andhra territories.

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