Just about every decorator understands when a customer asks for a room that is calm and tranquil, there is just one route to go with the furnishings, and that’s East. Think water features, bonzai, graceful flowers, beautiful screens and spectacular sculptures. It is easy to bring a hint of the orient in lots of ways, however among the most straightforward would be to add a sculpture of the Buddha. There are more than one hundred ’standard’ poses and three distinct orientations for these statues, so there is bound to be one that would be perfect for virtually every room, even when it is an unusual shape or size.
Buffets along with desks almost all seem to benefit from a seated Buddha, backyards and balconies may be perfect for a standing Buddha, but certain areas require an item much broader than high. There the ideal thing is a reclining Buddha.
Just about all Buddha statues display 32 features believed to have been physical features from the first Gautama Buddha who was born around 563 BC. They are also known as the ‘Thirty Two Signs of a Great Man’, and consist of:
• flat feet
• a pointed head
• beautiful gold skin
• long fingers the same length
• long toes all the same length
• a robe draped over one shoulder
• long ear lobes
The Buddha wasn’t in favor of idolizations of his own form, and therefore the proper question is actually, why are there so many Buddha statues?
It appears this may be another thing that may be blamed on the Greeks, and on one Greek in particular, Alexander the Great. When Alexander occupied India and Afghanistan, the leader kept many military and artisans in the regions, hence the art associated with the area was to a great extent affected by classical sculpture, and through Greek ideas of Gods and mortals. Alexander was legendary for taking pleasure in the reproduction of his own visage, having understood the value of paintings and statues as products of propaganda.
This might be the reason why Alexandrian India, with a partly Greek populace and ties to Greek culture, was the earliest area to produce Buddha statues. These proved exceptionally popular and the concept propogagted with Buddhism itself, on the other hand as Islam restricted the rendering of the human form and looked at such sculpture as idolatry, many of the historic and beautiful statues of the Buddha in that area have been destroyed.
There are a couple of well defined poses for these statues which pertain to distinct ideas or times in the life of the Buddha.
But the most fascinating is the reclining pose of the Buddha. There are 2 versions. The first shows the Buddha, relaxing with his head in his hand. This is the sleeping Buddha, however the alternative pose, where Buddha’s feet are resting together, represents the day the Buddha went into Nirvana.
Aged eighty, the Buddha sat down to rest and informed his followers he was about to enter parinirvana, the condition which happens whenever the body of an individual that has accomplished total awakening or enlightenment finally passes away. He consumed his last meal and then grew to become strongly ill. He asked his followers for any questions they had and when there weren’t any he gave all of them his final directions. “All composite things pass away. Strive for your own liberation with diligence.” Convention tells that when his body was placed between the sala trees, the plants bloomed, despite the fact that it was not the time of year.
This is the event commemorated by the reclining Buddha statue. In Thailand the most common pose shows the Buddha with legs crossed and with his left hand in his lap while the right points to the ground, palm inward in a pose called ‘Calling the Earth to Witness’ and relates to the specific of the Buddha’s enlightenment.
Whichever form your room, generally there is a Buddha statue that will certainly match, providing a feeling of peace and tranquility to your world and surroundings.