Worshippers at a sacred tree (about 50 BCE to 50 CE): Art, History and Details

Worshippers at a sacred tree (about 50 BCE to 50 CE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

The square railing surrounding the base of the trunk is the marker of a sacred tree. This tree has the distinctive heart-shaped leaves of the Bodhi tree (ficus religiosa), which is the type of tree under which the Buddha reached enlightenment. Each of the the worshippers holds a narrow-necked pot with lotus flowers emerging from the mouth. The lotus flowers are a symbol for water, so these figures are pouring offerings of pure water to the sacred tree.

Object facts

• Title: Worshippers at a sacred tree
• Date: about 50 BCE to 50 CE
• Culture: Southern India, Andhra Pradesh, possibly Chandavaram
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: limestone
• Dimensions: Overall: 80 x 57.1 cm (31 1/2 x 22 1/2 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art - Andhra, Amaravati
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1970.43

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.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.
• Heeramaneck, Alice N. Masterpieces of Indian Sculpture from the Former Collections of Nasli M. Heeramaneck. Verona, Italy: A.N. Heeramaneck, 1979.

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.