Sealing with Enthroned Buddha Calling the Earth to Witness
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.Making these multiple clay impressions, pressed by hand from a metal or fired-clay matrix, was a simple and inexpensive means by which Buddhist devotees could accrue religious merit. A number of Myanmar Buddhist moldings bear inscriptions on the reverse including the donor’s name. Some add that the icon was made “with my own hands, for the sake of deliverance”; in one instance, the donor is identified as a queen. One sutra compares writing the dharma verses and installing them in a stupa to “doing homage by offering up a rare jewel.”
cat. no. 54
cat. no. 54
Artwork Details
- Title: Sealing with Enthroned Buddha Calling the Earth to Witness
- Date: 8th century
- Culture: Central Myanmar
- Medium: Fired clay
- Dimensions: H. 6 11/16 in. (17 cm); W. 6 1/8 in. (15.5 cm); D. 1 9/16 in. (4 cm)
- Classification: Sculpture
- Credit Line: Lent by Thiri Khittaya (Śrī Ksetra) Archaeological Museum, Hmawza, Myanmar (2001/2/63)
- Curatorial Department: Asian Art