Wednesday, 29 June 2016

A Boddhisattva's Mount?

#Chinesesculpture #elephant #puxian #samantabhadra #chinesebuddhistart

This has been roughly dated to the #TANG dynasty. It's a rather odd object in that part of it seems to be missing and not merely broken off but to have had a whole detachable upper part missing.


Its an elephant and carved in a white stone and it is standing on a lotus which suggests an association with the #boddhisattva #Samantabhadra.


In many paintings of Samantabhadra also known as Fugen in Japan a pedestal can clearly been seen. So I'm thinking either the top part was broken off perhaps during an anti buddhist riot or there were a separate statue designed to revolve as part of some kind of ritual or because it was made in a separate material, jade, gold, or ivory?


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