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View at the museum ↗Standing Bodhisattva with Human-Figure Necklace
Unrecorded artistKushan period, 2nd/3rd century
- Attribution
- Pakistan Ancient region of Gandhara
- Medium
- Phyllite
- Physical dimensions
- 150.5 × 53.3 × 19 cm (59 1/4 × 21 × 8 in.)
- Credit line
- Gift of Marilynn B. Alsdorf
Museum metadata is available under CC0. Image availability and rights are separate; consult the source record.
Source rights statement: Public domain
View the museum record ↗From the museum
This sculpture of a bodhisattva—probably the future Buddha Maitreya—typifies the Gandharan style, which adopted a Hellenistic idiom apparent in such features as the chiseled musculature of the abdomen and the plush folds of the fabrics draped around the body. He sports an elegant chignon, heavy jewelry, a floral headband, a mustache, and an urna —a whorl of hair between the eyebrows that is one of the special lakshana s (marks) of a Buddha. Bodhisattvas, who entered the pantheon of Mahayana Buddhism around the turn of the first millennium, embarked on the path to enlightenment for the benefit of all humanity.
Description: Art Institute of Chicago · CC BY 4.0