Unknown
Head of Buddha Shakyamunicirca 475

On view:

Resnick Pavilion, floor 1

Artist or Maker: Unknown
Title: Head of Buddha Shakyamuni
Place Made: India, Uttar Pradesh, Sarnath
Date Made: circa 475
Medium: Sandstone
Dimensions: overall: 10 × 7 × 5 1/2 in. (25.4 × 17.78 × 13.97 cm)
Credit Line: From the Nasli and Alice Heeramaneck Collection, Museum Associates Purchase
Accession Number: M.79.9.2
Classification: Sculpture
Collecting Area: South and Southeast Asian Art
Curatorial Notes: This elegant head of Buddha Shakyamuni epitomizes the restrained stylistic ideal of Buddha images created during the mid-5th century in the artistic and religious center of Sarnath, Uttar Pradesh, where the Buddha preached his First Sermon. It would have originally surmounted a Buddha torso with a robe fashioned in the unpleated ‘wet look’ drapery style (see 69.3 and M.79.83).

This Buddha head displays several of the standard iconographic features. It has snail-curl hair, the cranial protuberance (ushnisha) emblematic of his omniscience, elongated earlobes symbolizing his renunciation of the material world, and heavily-lidded pensive eyes conveying his compassion for all sentient beings. There is no sacred forehead marking (urna).
Selected Bibliography: Little, Stephen, and Tushara Bindu Gude. Realms of the Dharma: Buddhist Art across Asia. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2025.