Cultural object
Naga-Enthroned Buddha (Cleveland Museum of Art)
Naga-Enthroned Buddha is a 12th-century bronze from Angkor in Cambodia, showing the Buddha seated on a serpent, held by the Cleveland Museum of Art.[1] The Buddha is crowned and bejeweled, and the museum ties the image type, the Buddha seated on a naga, to King Jayavarman VII.[1]
The object
The sculpture is bronze with traces of gilding. It measures 58.4 by 28 centimeters (23 by 11 inches).[1][2] The Buddha sits on the serpent, or naga, with his hands in his lap in a meditation posture.[1] The museum writes that the hands hold what appears to be a ceremonial rice offering, which it reads as expressing a hope that he will make the land prosper.[1] The museum's accession number is 1963.263, and its record also gives the title Buddha Sheltered by Mucalinda, the Serpent King.[2]
Iconography
The Buddha seated on a naga was an extremely popular image in Angkorian art. The large Buddha image from the Bayon takes this form: the Buddha sits in deep meditation on a many-headed serpent, whose raised heads make a canopy above him.[3] In 10th-century Cambodia it was the most widespread image of the Buddha, and at Phimai, built in the reign of Jayavarman VI, a lintel shows it with worshippers below and seated Buddhas above.[4]
Polkinghorne, Pottier and Fischer write that most scholars read the image as joining an old Khmer worship of the naga with the Buddha Sakyamuni, whom the serpent Mucalinda sheltered during his enlightenment. Others question this and prefer some kind of Mahayana link.[3] Conti writes that various scholars have proposed that for the Khmers the image came to stand for the Buddha's transcendent nature. George Cœdès and Wibke Lobo see it as the Adibuddha, the Buddha enlightened before time began. Peter Sharrock suggests that in the 10th-century Buddhist setting it came to stand for Vairocana, main Buddha of the vajradhatu mandala.[4] In a note, Conti writes, following Sharrock, that the name naga-enthroned, used in place of the usual naga-protected, separates the icon from the Mucalinda myth. That myth matters in Theravada Buddhism but seems to have no role in Mahayana Buddhist societies.[4]
The museum ties the image type to Jayavarman VII, builder of the great royal temple at Banteay Chhmar. It writes that the king linked himself with this image as the divine form in which he would be honored.[1] In the museum's account, the image was set up for veneration everywhere during his reign.[1] It was often set up with Lokesvara, associated with his father, and with Prajnaparamita, under whose form his deceased mother was honored.[1] The museum describes Lokesvara as the powerful enlightened being of compassion and Prajnaparamita as the goddess who personifies wisdom.[1] It writes that the king presented himself as the enlightened Buddha, "the product of the union of Compassion and Wisdom," with the naga, which it reads as the Khmer people, upholding and glorifying him.[1] Finds at Banteay Chhmar include naga-enthroned Buddhas carved in relief on its buildings and others made as icons in the round.[1]
After the death of Jayavarman VII, the museum writes, the image took a new meaning among those who followed other forms of Buddhism (for example, Theravada), which became prevalent in Cambodia. They read it as the episode in the life of the historical Buddha when a serpent shielded him from a flood. In the museum's view, the crown and jewels of this Buddha mark him as another kind of transcendent figure.[1]
Date and origin
The museum dates the bronze to the 1100s and places it in the Angkor Wat period of the 12th century, at Angkor in Cambodia.[1][2]
Provenance
The museum's record lists H. W. Thompson of Bangkok as an earlier owner. J. J. Klejman of New York sold the sculpture to the Cleveland Museum of Art. The record gives May 11, 1963, as the accession date and the John L. Severance Fund as the credit line.[2] As of October 2026, the museum's page notes that its information on the object, provenance included, may not be currently accurate.[1]
Display
The museum's record lists four exhibitions that included the sculpture. The Cleveland Museum of Art organized Year in Review (1963), from November 27, 1963, to January 5, 1964. The Art Gallery of New South Wales organized Buddha, Radiant Awakening, from November 10, 2001, to February 24, 2002. The Cleveland Museum of Art organized Focus: Tantra in Buddhist Art, from May 5 to September 15, 2013, and Beyond Angkor: Cambodian Sculpture from Banteay Chhmar, from October 14, 2017, to March 25, 2018.[2] The cover of the September 1965 issue of The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art reproduced the sculpture, with an article by Margaret F. Marcus, "Buddha Sheltered by Mucalinda."[2]
As of October 2026, the museum's page lists the sculpture as not on view.[1] Under the museum's Open Access Initiative, anyone may copy, modify and distribute this work without asking permission, and the museum publishes a 3D model of it.[1][2]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 Cleveland Museum of Art, Naga-Enthroned Buddha (undated)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 Cleveland Museum of Art, Naga-Enthroned Buddha, 1963.263, Open Access collection record (updated October 9, 2026)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Martin Polkinghorne, Christophe Pottier and Christian Fischer, "One Buddha Can Hide Another," Journal Asiatique 301, no. 2 (2013): 593
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Pia Conti, "Tantric Buddhism in Phimai: A New Reading of its Iconographic Message," undated, pp. 1, 3 and 9, and note 1