Sarnath: Maitreya Bodhisattva
Sandstone
彌勒菩薩像
印度北方邦鹿野苑遺址出土
印度北方邦瓦拉那西（Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh）鹿野苑（Sarnath）出土。菩薩梳髮髻冠，垂髮披肩。袒上身，下身纏腰布。全身未戴任何飾物，左肩掛聖線，並斜披帛帶，服飾特徵均為印度教的形象。兩前臂與小腿以下部分殘缺，但仍可看出其左手原持由大地生長出來的花莖。因花朵部分已損，故無法判斷花的種類。該像冠上的化佛極為特別，在鹿野苑造像中，化佛是所有大乘菩薩像的共同特徵。
笈多王朝（約320〜550）晚期，佛教理論色彩越來越濃，可是卻漸遠離群眾，為挽回信眾，因而發展出與當時興盛的印度教精神合流之造像。此尊彌勒菩薩的精神已漸漸吸收印度教神像的元素，從衣飾與手持物，已可看出一些端倪。
For more details, go to the Encyclopedia of Buddhist Arts: Sculpture N-Sr, page 977.
Cite this article:
Hsingyun, et al. "Sarnath: Maitreya Bodhisattva." Encyclopedia of Buddhist Arts: Sculpture N-Sr, vol. 12, 2016, pp. 977.
Hsingyun, Youheng, Yann Lovelock, Yuan Chou, Susan Huntington, Gary Edson, and Robert Neather. 2016. "Sarnath: Maitreya Bodhisattva" In Encyclopedia of Buddhist Arts: Sculpture N-Sr, 12:977.
Hsingyun, Youheng, Lovelock, Y., Chou, Y., Huntington, S., Edson, G., & Neather, R.. (2016). Sarnath: Maitreya Bodhisattva. In Encyclopedia of Buddhist Arts: Sculpture N-Sr (Vol. 12, pp. 977).
@misc{Hsingyun2016,
author = Hsingyun and Youheng and Lovelock, Yann and Chou, Yuan and Huntington, Susan and Edson, Gary and Neather, Robert,
booktitle = {Encyclopedia of Buddhist Arts: Sculpture N-Sr},
pages = 977,
title = {{Sarnath: Maitreya Bodhisattva}},
volume = 12,
year = {2016}}
author = Hsingyun and Youheng and Lovelock, Yann and Chou, Yuan and Huntington, Susan and Edson, Gary and Neather, Robert,
booktitle = {Encyclopedia of Buddhist Arts: Sculpture N-Sr},
pages = 977,
title = {{Sarnath: Maitreya Bodhisattva}},
volume = 12,
year = {2016}}