Preaching Buddha

Description This image would have once been placed in a Buddhist monastery. When Buddhists paid homage to it (thereby becoming better Buddhists), they would have been honoring the Buddha's core teachings, for the Buddha is shown performing the gesture of turning the wheel of the Law ("dharma," teaching). These teachings state that existence is unsatisfying, that our endless cravings make it so, but that these can cease, and that the Buddha has shown us the way. Influence from the Mediterranean world is apparent in the folds of the Buddha's robes and in the waves of his hair (different from the snail-shell curls that cover the mound on his head in the standard images of a later date).

Exhibitions

• Desire and Devotion: Art from India, Nepal, and Tibet in the John and Berthe Ford Collection. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore; Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara; Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque; Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham. 2001-2003.

Provenance Walter Shurkin, Albuquerque, after 1966, [mode of acquisition unknown]; John and Berthe Ford, Baltimore [date of acquisition unknown], by purchase.

Credit Promised gift of John and Berthe Ford