Seated Buddha

According to the sacred Pali scriptures of Theravada Buddhism, the Buddha had thirty-two major and eight minor characteristics. Starting in the thirteenth century, the kings of Thailand, who reigned at Sukhothai, embraced Theravada Buddhism and commissioned statues that adhered closely to the Pali canon. The Museum’s statue contains many of the features of the Buddha as they are listed in these scriptures. He was said to have an ushnisha, or a protuberance on the top of his head, curls of hair spiralling in a clockwise direction, and distended earlobes adorned with heavy jewelry, reminders of his earlier life as a prince. The Sukhothai carvers added other distinctive features that drew on similes used in Sanskrit poetry. The gesture of calling the earth to witness, the pose in which the Buddha is represented, seated cross-legged with his fingertips touching the ground, is common in Sukhothai art. It is the charged moment before the Buddha attained enlightenment, when meditating under the Bodhi tree he was visited suddenly by the evil Mara, who attempted to disrupt the meditation and shook the earth with great force. By touching the ground with his hand, the Buddha called on the earth goddess to witness his lifetime of accumulated merits. She then caused water to gush forward, chasing Mara away and enabling the Buddha to attain enlightenment. (From “A Handbook of the Collection: Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art,” 1998)