A Rare Green Schist Figure of the Emaciated Siddhartha
PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE CALIFORNIA COLLECTOR
A Rare Green Schist Figure of the Emaciated Siddhartha

GANDHARA, 2ND/3RD CENTURY

Details
A Rare Green Schist Figure of the Emaciated Siddhartha
Gandhara, 2nd/3rd century
Expressively carved seated in dhyanasana on a pedestal with his hands in his lap, clad in a long sanghati with folds delineated by incised lines, his emaciated torso revealing the ribcage, the face with gaunt cheeks and deep-set eyes, the hair pulled into a topknot over the ushnisha, with two attendants to his left
10 in. (25.4 cm.) high
Provenance
Acquired in London, 1999
Literature
N. Tingley, Buddhas, 2009, cat. no. 3.
Exhibited
Buddha, Crocker Art Museum, Canada, 31 January - 19 April, 2009.
Sale room notice
This sculpture was part of the Buddha exhibition at the Crocker Art Museum, Canada, 31 January - 19 April, 2009, and was also published in the accompanying exhibition catalogue.

Lot Essay

After renouncing his princely existence in search of truth, Siddhartha went through a stage of profound austerity. For six years Siddhartha tried passionately to work out his own way of salvation, visiting several religious masters of the time. Dissatisfied with their teachings, he practiced asceticism, submitting himself to such severe physical austerities that he came to look like a living skeleton. The deeply sunken eyeballs, the projecting cheekbones and rib cage attest to his effort and discipline to exceed human limitations in his quest for spiritual transcendence.

Gandharan artists, beyond capturing the idealized physical beauty of the enlightened Buddha, were equally capable of dramatizing a subject. The goal was to expresses the noble spiritual state of the Bodhisattva seeking the meaning of life at the threshold between life and death. It is arguably the most graphic image of the physical deprivation and mental concentration endured by Siddhartha on his path towards Enlightenment, and is one of the quintessential Gandharan iconic types. For a related example, see I. Kurita, Gandharan Art, 1990, vol. 1, cat. no. 191, p. 102.

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