Reflections of the Buddha - The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts

Lower Gallery
The Buddha’s Light
Large groupings of small-scale gilded sculptures and gold-painted images adorn Buddhist altars and shrines
throughout Asia. In Buddhism gold is often emblematic of the radiance of enlightenment. The labor and great
expense taken to produce these devotional objects also helped everyone involved gain karmic merit. Karma is
the universal law of cause and effect: Actions in this life will determine the form in which an individual will be
reborn in the next life.
19. Womb World Mandala (Taizōkai mandara),
mid-13th century
Japan, Kamakura period, 1185 – 1333; hanging
scroll, gold and color on indigo-dyed silk;
35⅝ x 31¼ in.; Collection of Sylvan Barnet
and William Burto
At the heart of the central eight-petaled
lotus of this mandala is Buddha
Mahāvairocana, the embodiment of universal
truth. He sits in meditation emanating a seemingly
infinite number of forms in the surrounding rows. These
are hierarchically arranged: Buddhas, bodhisattvas,
guardians, ghosts, and other figures and symbols.
Vajrayāna Buddhists in Japan regard Mahāvairocana as
the unifier of two worlds: the spiritual and masculine
Diamond World and the material and feminine Womb
World. This mandala thus depicts only the female half of
a pair called the Mandalas of the Two Worlds.
20. Guardian King of the North (Vaiśravana)
(duo wen tian wang), 1279 – 1368
China, Yuan dynasty, 1279 – 1368; chased,
engraved, and gilded bronze; 14½ x 7¾ x 5
in.; The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas
City, Missouri, Purchase: the Asian Art
Acquisition Fund in memory of Laurence
Sickman, F95-4
Vaiśravana, depicted as a formidable Chinese general,
secures the northern direction of Buddhist religious
structures. He holds a stupa in his left hand symbolizing
the divine treasure house, whose contents he both guards
and gives away. In Central and Eastern Asia, Vaiśravana is
considered to be the most important of all the numerous
Buddhist wealth gods because he provides freedom by
way of bestowing prosperity, so that one may focus on
spirituality rather than on materiality.
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21. Seated Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara (Guanyin),
8th century
China, Tang dynasty, 618 – 907;
bronze with gilding; 10¾ x 5⅜ x 3⅝ in.;
Saint Louis Art Museum, Museum Purchase,
36:1933
Adorned with elaborate jewelry and
flowing scarves, this sculpture depicts
Avalokiteśvara sitting with one foot resting on a lotus
blossom. The cosmopolitan culture of the Tang dynasty
led artists toward naturalism, which became fully
expressed in the eighth century, when this work was
made.
22. Standing Buddha (possibly Śākyamuni)
(Sokkamuni), 8th or 9th century
Korea, Unified Silla dynasty, 668 – 935; gilt bronze;
10¼ x 3� in.; The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art,
Kansas City, Missouri, Purchase: William Rockhill
Nelson Trust, 49-18
This statue of a Buddha represents a time
when Buddhism was an important political, religious,
and cultural force in Korea. Influenced
by Tang dynasty art, it combines the naturalism of the
human form with an abstraction that prevents it from
taking on the secularity and realism of a portrait.