Tuesday 5 July 2016

Maitreya One

The first known images of the #Boddhisattva #Maitreya are Indian or #Kushan #sculptures to be more precise.


Clearly a North Indian aristocrat but the first Chinese sculptors to create Buddhist images made this WEI dynasty stele.





And later we get a divergence between images like this but also identifications and depictions of Maitreya as Budai / Hotei.


Budai is an odd blend of Chan eccentric and Taoist Sage.

More about this next time.


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