Enthroned Buddha in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, October 2023

Title: Enthroned Buddha

Period: Ikshvaku

Date: late 3rd century CE

Culture: India, probably Goli stupa, Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh

Medium: Limestone

Dimensions: H. 16 3/4 in. (42.5 cm); W. 15 in. (38.1 cm); D. 4 1/8 in. (10.5 cm)

Classification: Sculpture

Credit Line: Lent by Brooklyn Museum, New York, Gift of the Ernest Erickson Foundation, Inc.

Object Number: TS.179

Rights and Reproduction: Brooklyn Museum


This Buddha sits on a throne-seat supported by lions that gaze at two long-horned ibex or deer—a reference to the Buddha’s first sermon at Sarnath. The Andhra style of Buddha imagery is a result of cultural exchange across the Indian subcontinent: Sculptural images of the Buddha in the round appeared in the south in the third century CE, at least a century after versions in the north. The Buddhist art of the Deccan was also impacted by pre-Buddhist as well as non-Indian art, both the long-established sculptural tradition of the yaksha, or nature deity, and Roman aesthetic influences stimulated by an upsurge in Indo-Roman sea trade.


Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/762008