Footnotes

斯里蘭卡 阿努拉達普拉時期 十八世紀 銅鎏金青金石眼佛坐像

Provenance
Private Collection, US, by 1957
Thence by descent

Published
Phoenix Art Museum, Guardian of the Flame: Art of Sri Lanka, Phoenix, 2003, p. 133 & 152.

Exhibited
Guardian of the Flame: Art of Sri Lanka, Phoenix Art Museum, 8 February - 11 May 2003; The Cantor Art Center, Stanford University, 2 March - 12 June 2005; University of Virginia Art Museum, 21 January - 19 March 2006.


Made by the imperial workshops of Sri Lanka's kingdom of Kandy, this sculpture is perhaps the largest and finest gilt bronze Seated Buddha from the Kandyan period still in private hands. This seated image is as tall as most bronze Standing Buddha images from the Kandyan period. It may also be the only privately-held Kandyan Seated Buddha image that survives consecrated with eyes of inset semi-precious stones.

As discussed by Listopad, since at least the first millennium CE, the creation of a Buddha image in Sri Lanka culminates with a consecration ceremony known as netra pinkama, or 'the meritorious action of establishing the eyes'. This could be achieved by carving, painting, inlaying, or insetting the eyes - in this case with lapis lazuli. A netra pinkama ceremony would also be repeated periodically to clean and reset the eyes, and in the Kandyan period it was performed every time a temple was established or refurbished (Phoenix Art Museum, Guardian of the Flame: Art of Sri Lanka, Phoenix, 2003, p. 46-7). Yet, while most bronze Kandyan sculptures in museums and private collections have small pupils indented for this purpose, almost none of them retain their consecrating stones.

The Buddha appears on a simple base, seated in the heroic posture (virasana), characterised by folding the legs one over the other, mirroring the position of the hands in dhyana or samadhimudra. Thus, the Buddha is portrayed entranced in a deep meditative state. Iconographic particularities reflecting the enlightened state of the Buddha are the flaming siraspata emerging from the head as well as the wheels incised on the feet. The robes are draped over one of the broad shoulders in crisp wavy lines, with the distinctive Kandyan rendering of a light, crinkling garment that hugs Buddha's empyrean physique. These characteristics, alongside the figure's abstracted physiognomy, are representative of the Kandyan style, which conveys the Buddha's eternal inner essence through a stylised perfection of the human form.