‘Tree & Serpent: Early Buddhist Art in India’ at the MET
By Ruben C. Cordova
During the first centuries of the Buddhist artistic tradition, the Buddha himself was nowhere to be seen. Having achieved Nirvana and transcended the perpetual cycle of life, death, and rebirth, he was instead represented by his absence in various forms, such as the empty throne he had renounced, a riderless horse, a spoked wheel representing Dharma (doctrine), the Bodhi tree under which he received enlightenment, a pair of elaborately decorated footprints, or a pillar of fire. Gradually, the Buddha materialized in human form in relief carvings and freestanding sculptures. The Tree & Serpent exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art traces this evolution in central and southern India, primarily between 200 B.C.E. - 400 C.E. It centers on decorations made for the dome-shaped shrines known as stupas that housed the Buddha’s ashes (which were subdivided many times), along with other relics. Whereas stupas were the initial focus of aniconic Buddhist worship in ancient India, they gradually included images of the Buddha before they were supplanted by freestanding statues of the Buddha placed in monasteries and shrines...
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