Head of Buddha Andesite Java, Central Javanese Period

The gracefully modeled head of the Buddha, his full, rounded face with downcast eyes, aquiline nose and soft, gently smiling lips bearing a bearing a deeply meditative expression, his hair arranged in large, flat curls over his head with its low domed ushnisha. The Buddha’s ushnisha or cranial protuberance as well as his elongated earlobes are lakshanas or iconographic markers establishing his status as a supramundane being. The ushnisha indicates his superior knowledge while the empty earlobes, elongated under the weight of jewelry now discarded, refer to the princely life that he renounced in his quest for Truth.

A. Vecht Art Gallery, Amsterdam, 1939.

Buddhist Art, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, 1942
Netherlands Indies, Buffalo Museum of Science, Buffalo, 1944
The Art of Greater India, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, 1950

Sherman Lee, Buddhist Art, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, 1942, Cat. 38
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Art of Greater India, Catalogue of the Exhibition, 1950, Cat. 166

The Indian subcontinent enjoyed a thriving commercial relationship with Southeast Asia since the early centuries of the Common Era. In fact, the South and Southeast Asian region was part of a wide trading network that stretched from the Roman Empire to China in early antiquity. Monks, missionaries and emissaries from the Indian subcontinent followed the footsteps of the merchants and disseminated Indian political and religious concepts as well as literary, artistic and cultural ideas across Southeast Asia. Trade provided the impetus for the establishment of commercial and cultural centers in the region and by the middle of the first millennium these urban centers became the hub around which organized states and kingdoms ruled by ‘Indian-style’ kingships came into being.

Among the most significant of these entities was the Sailendra dynasty of Java who emerged as the dominant power in this area in the 7th century. From their origins as a small agrarian state in South Central Java, the Sailendras extended their power over the neighboring Sumatran domains of Srivijaya and the Malay Peninsula and even exerted influence over parts of Thailand and Cambodia. As one of the earliest ‘Indianized’ states in the region, they adopted Buddhism as their religion and erected numerous temples and sanctuaries all over their territory. Under their patronage Buddhist art achieved an unprecedented efflorescence, and this is manifested in the magnificent temple of Borobudur in Central Java, a massive edifice constructed during the 9th century, which stands today as a testament to the genius of the Javanese artisans and craftsmen of the time.

Configured in the shape of stepped pyramid anchored by a large central stupa, this monument was built on a schema that replicated the cosmos according to the Buddhist worldview. Ornamented with over 1,300 bas reliefs depicting Buddhist myths and fables and containing 504 life-size stone images of seated Buddhas, Borobudur functioned as a place of pilgrimage for lay worshippers who came to cleanse their souls and to also pay their respects to the royal ancestors of the Sailendra kings who were believed to have attained divine status upon their death. The name Borobudur was possibly derived from the Sanskrit 'Bhumisam Bharabudhara,' which may be translated as the Mountain of Accumulation of Virtue in the Ten Stages of Bodhisattva. In fact the architectural plan of the monument blends the concept of Mount Meru, the cosmic mountain that arises from the center of the earth, with the Buddhist cosmogony or mandala, which is superimposed upon it.

The temple is conceived on the basis of a three-fold tectonic division of the universe; the lower level representing Kamadhatu or the Sphere of Desire, which progresses to the middle level reflecting Rupadhatu or the Sphere of Form and culminating in the Arupadhatu of the Sphere of Formlessness at the upper level, where the liberated conscious finally breaks free of all material considerations. The circular terraces on the three uppermost levels bear hollow stupas, their surfaces ornamented with a trellis pattern, each containing a life-size sculpture of a seated Buddha. These images of Dhyanibuddhas or celestial Buddhas, each associated with a cosmic realm – ether, water, earth, fire and air – were meant to be visualized by the practitioner during meditation. Each Dhyanibuddha also embodied the wisdom that was the perfect antidote to the five vices that stood in the way of Enlightenment. Meditating on these transcendent beings led to a gradual Enlightenment of the conscious and ultimately to spiritual transformation.

Strains of the ‘Classical’ Gupta tradition of North India are particularly apparent in Indonesian art. This was either imported directly or transmitted through later Indian artistic styles that retained the elements of Gupta artistic ideals. However, while these artistic impulses transmitted from the Indian subcontinent influenced Indonesian art in varying degrees, Indonesian sculptors evolved their own interpretations of these influences through a gradual process of adaptation and adjustment creating a unique artistic vocabulary in keeping with their native traditions, which is manifest in the present image. The treatment of the hair as a system of rounded curls, the aquiline nose and the detached otherworldly expression are all close to Gupta prototypes of North India, but the Buddha’s soft, fleshy face with it full, round cheeks is typically Javanese in character.

The present image may be compared with a complete sculpture of a Dhyani Buddha in situ within a partially dismantled hollow stupa in the upper level at Borobudur, illustrated in Jan Fontein, The Sculpture of Indonesia, New York, 1990, p. 74. Also see ibid., Cat. 11, pp. 134-5, for other sculptures of Dhyani Buddhas. In a museum note the scholar Sherman Lee is cited as believing the present head belongs to one of the life-size Buddha sculptures of Borobudur. With its benign, introspective countenance, the sculpture radiates intense spirituality and is a rare example from this historic monument representing the remarkable achievements of Indonesian art during this early period.