Statue of Tara (British Museum)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The statue of Tara in room 33 of the British Museum
Back of the statue of Tara

The statue of Tara in the British Museum is an originally gilded bronze sculpture of the Bodhisattvi Tara from the late 8th or early 9th century in Sri Lanka . It was given to the museum in 1830 by Robert Brownrigg (1759–1833), then governor of British Ceylon , where it is still located today.

history

The sculpture comes from the Buddhist Anuradhapura kingdom, which dates back to the fourth century BC. Existed until the eleventh century AD. It is not known by whom it was made, but the materials used show that the client must have been very wealthy. Other valuable parts of the statue were probably lost gemstones from the crown, a flower and an Adibuddha Amitabha. The statue of Tara is the only known bronze sculpture of this size from the Anuradhapura period (over 1.40 m).

In terms of religious history, Tara, who was originally a Hindu mother goddess and was adopted in a new role in Buddhism , embodies the cultural networking of Buddhism and Hinduism. From around the 6th century she was first integrated into the system of Mahayana Buddhism in northern India as the female emanation of Avalokiteshvara , the Bodhisattva of universal compassion ( Karuna ) . Since the introduction of Buddhism in the time of the Indian King Ashoka (304–232 BC), at the time this sculpture was made for around 1000 years, Sri Lanka was shaped by Theravada Buddhism, in which the Buddha Siddhartha Gautama was exclusively is worshiped, not also bodhisattvas as in Mahayana. The Tara statue shows in its time of creation in the 8th / 9th Influences of Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism on Sri Lanka that existed in the 19th century . The design in terms of its size and the value of the materials used gives reason to assume that Tara herself was the focus of worship here, she was not only considered a feminine aspect alongside Avalokiteshvara. The Indologist and Buddhist scholar Richard Gombrich, on the other hand, assumes that it stood in a temple together with a corresponding statue of Avalokiteshvara, which, however, did not survive the centuries and has been lost.

Provenance and exhibition in the British Museum

The statue was found between Trincomalee and Batticaloa on the east coast of the island in the early 19th century , according to British Museum records . Robert Brownrigg, the then governor of the island, which had been under British rule since 1815, handed it over to the director of the Henry Ellis Museum , where it is dated June 1830. The Sri Lankan authorities suspect, however, that Brownrigg took it back in 1815 after the British conquered the royal city of Kandy .

When the museum received the statue, the curator was concerned that this female figure, with its bare breasts, narrow waist and curvaceous hips, might appear too erotic on visitors, so it was not on public display for 30 years and only scholars for study purposes was accessible. Sometimes it was assumed that it could be a representation of Pattini , a protective goddess from the tradition of the Tamils . Identification as a tare is now generally accepted. It has recently been featured in the exhibitions “The Art of Ancient Sri Lanka” ( Commonwealth Institute London, 1981) and “Buddhism: Art and Faith” (temporary exhibition at the British Museum, 1985). In 2010 it was included in the British Museum's presentation “ A History of the World in 100 Objects ”.

A cast is in the National Museum of Colombo in Sri Lanka.

description

Statue of Tara

The originally gilded bronze statue, 143 cm high, 44 cm wide and 29.5 cm deep, shows Tara in a standing position. The upper body is bare, the waist is very narrow and the breasts are full and round. Around her hips she wears a tight-fitting scarf that emphasizes the shape of the body in the style of a sarong with a hem at calf level. Characteristic of standing representations of these Bodhisattvi is the position of the legs in contraposto , the right leg straight, the left a little bent and placed forward, whereby the hip falls slightly from the right to the left side. The torso and head are erect and straight forward. As usual in the representation of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas in Buddhist art since the Gupta period (4th – 6th centuries), the eyes are half closed, the gaze, symbolizing meditative contemplation, seems to be directed downwards, and the earlobes are conspicuous long. The hair is very short or tight all over the head and only pinned high at the top point (see Ushnisha ). At the base of the large topknot is framed by a hoop, on the front of which, as in many portraits of Bodhisattvas, an oval, tapering attachment can be seen. Headdress and eyes were originally set with precious stones.

The statue was remarkably complex and valuable to produce, both in terms of its artistic design and the choice of materials used. Unlike comparable sculptures that are hollow or have a core made of cheaper materials, it is made of solid bronze that was cast using the lost wax technique.

iconography

Bodhisattvas in Mahayana Buddhism stand for the principle of not only attaining Bodhi ("enlightenment") oneself , but also to help all of them to reach this highest level of knowledge out of compassion for all beings. A statue like that of Tara is not used for worship or worship of a deity, but rather to draw attention during meditation to those qualities that are represented by it - in this case the universal compassion for which Tara-Avalokiteshvara stand. These aspects are underlined in Buddhist iconography by the gestures and attributes with which Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are represented.

The right arm of the Tara statue is lowered and angled slightly forward, with the hand open in the Varada mudra , with the palm facing the viewer and fingers pointing downwards. It is the one giving gesture of granting a wish, also the granting of grace, which symbolically stands for the fact that a meditation on the qualities it embodies can lead the practitioner to perfect them in themselves. The left arm is bent and the hand shows the katakahasta mudra, in which the index finger and thumb touch each other and the remaining fingers are loosely turned towards the palm as if it were holding a flower. A lotus flower , which has since been lost, was probably originally to be seen here as an attribute, which in Buddhist iconography is the symbol of the purity of the immaculate Buddha nature . On her head she wears a crown, in the large central opening of which, as is known from other representations of Taras, there was a figure of the seated Adibuddha Amitabha , who is considered to be the mentor (cf. Guru ) of Taras and Avalokiteshvaras.

literature

  • Wladimir Zwalf (Ed.): Buddhism: art and faith . The British Museum Press, London 1985, p. 150.
  • Neil MacGregor : A History of the World in 100 Objects . Penguin, 2012; German: A history of the world in 100 objects . Beck, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-406-62147-5 , pages 413-418 (with illus. Quoted among others Richard Gombrich )
  • R. Coningham et al: The State of Theocracy: Defining an Early Medieval Hinterland in Sri Lanka . In: Antiquity 81, 2007, pp. 699-719.

Web links

Commons : Tara Statue  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f British Museum , Collection Online: Description of the sculpture of Tara , accessed on December 9, 2013.
  2. ↑ a b c d BBC : A History of the World: Episode 54 - Statue of Tara , accessed December 9, 2013.
  3. ^ Louis Frédéric : Buddhism - gods, pictures and sculptures. Éditions Flammarion, Paris 2003, ISBN 2-08-021001-7 , p. 218.
  4. ↑ KM De Silva: A History of Sri Lanka . University of California Press. Berkeley 1981, p. 51.
  5. ^ A b The female as Cult Object in Buddhism , Digital Library. Retrieved December 10, 2013.
  6. ^ Jeanette Greenfield: The return of cultural treasures . 2nd Edition. Cambridge university press, Cambridge 1996, ISBN 0-521-47746-8 , pp. 132 ( online ).
  7. ^ The signing of the Kandyan Convention , SB Karalliyadda, February 25, 2006, Lanka Library. Retrieved December 9, 2013.
  8. ↑ a b Statue of Tara , Highlights, British Museum. Retrieved December 9, 2013.
  9. ^ British Museum : A History of the World in 100 objects , overview page ( Memento from July 28, 2017 in the Internet Archive ).
  10. ↑ Meher McArthur: Reading Buddhist Art . Thames & Hudson. London 2002, ISBN 0500284288 , p. 47.