Bodhisattva Copper alloy with silver, copper and turquoise inlay India and Tibet

The Pala period bodhisattva with right hand in abhaya mudra, the gesture of reassurance and fearlessness, the left holding the stem of a lotus flower, eyes inlaid with silver and the lips with copper, wearing a short dhoti, bodhisattva jewelry with a silver necklace, a ratnopavita, and a flowing scarf over the shoulders, and standing in abhanga on a Tibetan separately cast tiered pedestal with lion and elephant supports.

The eastern Indian Pala period statue has been reverantly remounted on a Tibetan pedestal of a style typical of the eleventh/twelfth century, cf. a number of early Tibetan statues with tall thrones supported by figures and animals, see Ulrich von Schroeder, Buddhist Sculpture in Tibet, Hong Kong, 2001, pp. 1138, pls. 296A-298D. Two eastern Indian standing Maitreyas, each with right hand in abhaya mudra, both now in Tibetan monastery collections, may help in the determination of the iconography of this bodhisattva that has lost the identifying emblem supported by the lotus flower at his shoulder, see ibid, pp. 313-5, pls 107A-B, 108B.