Does Anyone Know The History Of The First Buddha Statue?
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 at
1:35 am
There are so many on the internet and I just need to know who created the first one and when it was done and the location of it present day. Thank you!!
Even just to send me to a website link would be great!
Look at more Buddha Garden Statues
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Filed under: Buddha Questions and Answers
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the first representations of Buddha come from what are now Afghanistan and Pakistan. They resulted form the interaction between Hellenic (Greek) culture and Buddhist culture. Up until then, Buddha was represented only through symbols, not life-like (anthropomorphic) sculpture. The first representations date from after the conquest of this region by Alexander the Great, who brought Hellenic culture to that region, so about 4th century BC.
The first statue of the Future Buddha, which dates back to the Unified Silla Kingdom period (668-935), has been found, according to a prominent Buddhism art professor Thursday.
Moon Myung-dae, former professor of Buddhist Arts at Dongguk University, announced that he had confirmed that the Buddha statue enshrined at the Goseok Temple, Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province, was the sitting statue of Maitreya.
“This statue shows the Maitreya seated on a chair carved in a grotto. This type of statue was a huge trend in China and many were found, but strangely there were only two discovered in Korea: one from the Silla Kingdom (B.C. 57-A.D. 935) and the other from the Goryeo Kingdom (A.D. 918-1392),” Moon said.
However, with the discovery of the statue at Goseok Temple, Korea now has three, the most recent one being the first from the Unified Silla Kingdom.
The statue is 222 centimeters high and the width between the knees measures 95 centimeters.
“The statue is quite large. We discovered the Buddha while we were tearing off plaster that was put in place in 1923, and we contacted the professor for appraisal. We thought it was a statue of Medicine Buddha before we tore down the plaster, but it was strange as we could not find the medicine bowl, which is usually found in other such statues,” said Ven. Jong Bum, the head monk of the temple.
“As the first sitting statue of Future Buddha from the Unified Silla Kingdom period, we believe this will mark an important moment in Buddhism art history,” he added.
originally the representation of the buddha was of him not being present. just a tree with nothing else there. the human figure of the buddha came when the romans were in contact with the areas where the buddists were. the man in the buddhist representation is thought to have been inspired by the roman god apollo, though representing the buddha.