Bodhisattva Maitreya: The Future Buddha (1100s): Art, History and Details

Bodhisattva Maitreya: The Future Buddha (1100s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Dressed as a prince like all bodhisattvas, Maitreya is identifiable by the pot of nectar of immortality above his left shoulder. According to Buddhists, Maitreya will be reborn in the distant future to renew and reestablish the religion of Buddhism on earth, like the historical Buddha Shakyamuni did in the 400s BC. The blue paint on his hair indicates that this sculpture was used in Tibet. It was probably brought to Tibet, likely during the 1100s to 1200s when Buddhists relocated en masse from politically unstable northeastern India to Nepal and Tibet, where Buddhism was expanding and Indian masters, texts, and art were in high demand.

Object facts

• Title: Bodhisattva Maitreya: The Future Buddha
• Date: 1100s
• Culture: East India, Bengal, Pala period, 12th century
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: silver inlaid with turquoise, copper, brass and gold; gilt bronze lotus
• Dimensions: Overall: 32.4 cm (12 3/4 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1982.48

Collection credit

The Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Schroeder, Ulrich von. Indo-Tibetan Bronzes. Hong Kong: Visual Dharma Publications, 1981.
• Lee, Sherman E. “Year in Review for 1982.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 70, no. 1 (January 1983): 3–55.
• Ghose, Rajeshwari, Puay-peng Ho, and Chuntang Yang. Fa xiang chuan zhen: gu dai fo jiao yi shu [法相傳真 : 古代佛教兿術; In the footsteps of the Buddha: an iconic journey from India to China]. Hong Kong: Xianggang da xue mei shu bo wu guan, 1998.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.