Unknown Artist
- Title
- Reliquary stupa
- Place of origin
-
Swat Valley →
Ancient Gandhara →
Pakistan
- Period
- Kushan period mid 1st century - early 5th century → India
- Year
- 1st century-3rd century
- Media category
- Sculpture
- Materials used
- crystal, gold, copper and pearls
- Dimensions
-
28.0cm high
- Credit
- Purchased 2007
- Accession number
- 287.2007.a-j
- Location
- Upper Asian gallery
- Further information
The stupa is the quintessential symbol of the Buddha. Originally a funeral mound, constructed either to commemorate a great person or to house his relics, the stupa became synonymous with the Buddha after he instructed his disciples to erect one for his remains. While architectural ones serve as places of worship, smaller ones are used as reliquaries and votive offerings. There was a tradition of making votive stupas of precious materials: gold, rock crystal, silver, especially for personal shrines.The veneration accorded a reliquary stupa is determined by its size, rarity and preciousness of the materials from which it is made. This particular example is truly amazing. Like many stupas, it contains a reliquary containing a small gold stupa inside it and, furthermore, would have itself been placed within at least one other case, perhaps of stone, before being placed at the base of an architectural stupa.
Asian Art Department, AGNSW, August 2007.
- Bibliography (2)
-
'The Stupa' by Jackie Menzies, pg.27, Look Mar 2008, Mar 2008, 27 (colour illus.).
Art Gallery of New South Wales Annual Report 2007-08 2008, 2008, 18 (colour illus.).
- Exhibition history (1)
-
One hundred flowers (2011), Art Gallery of New South Wales, 01 Sep 2011–15 Jan 2012.
