Buddha Preaching the First Sermon

Week 10

Buddha Preaching the First Sermon

From Sarnath, 465-485

Sandstone

Height of 5’3 inches

Archaeological Museum, Sarnath

            This piece of artwork is depicting a sculpture of a religious artifact, or of a religious figure in the religion of Buddhism. It is a sandstone sculpture. It looks very smooth. The figure that is sculpted looks calm and at peace. It looks like a young boy trying to meditate. The texture of this particular art piece looks incredibly smooth. This is piece is very detailed in some areas, such as the top plate around the figures head. This artwork doesn’t look like it’s been painted at all.

            I think the purpose of this sculpture is to represent a holy figure in Buddhism. This sculpture could be for people to pray to or maybe to just use as remembrance for this holy figure. The social issue I chose to go along with this is religion. This is clearly a special figure for the Buddhist religion and they want it to be remembered.

            This helped change how we understand the Buddhist religion and what godly figure they pray to.  This sculpture gives us an idea of what Buddha might actually have looked like. And the position that he is sitting in also gives us an idea of how they pray and worship. They look like they are would be a very peaceful group of people. This statue gives us an understanding of how simple and peaceful their religion might be.