Seated Shakyamuni Buddha (c. 120 CE): Art, History and Details

Seated Shakyamuni Buddha (c. 120 CE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This early form of the Buddha image depicts him seated on an altar under the Bodhi tree. A coiled topknot of hair and elongated earlobes refer to his life as a prince when he wore a turban and heavy earrings. Behind his head is a solar disk, like a halo, and lions on the throne indicate the spreading of his teachings in all four directions.

Object facts

• Title: Seated Shakyamuni Buddha
• Date: c. 120 CE
• Culture: Northern India, Uttar Pradesh, Mathura, Kushan period
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: red mottled sandstone
• Dimensions: Overall: 51.4 cm (20 1/4 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art - Kushan, Mathura
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1970.63

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lee, Sherman E. "The Year in Review for 1970." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 58, no. 2 (1971): 22-71.
• Dwivedi, Vinod P. “Mathura Art in the Museums of the United States of America.” Journal of Indian Museums, 1973, pp. 25–26.
• Czuma, Stanislaw. “Mathura Sculpture in the Cleveland Museum Collection.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 64, no. 3, 1977, pp. 83–114.

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.