As the spiritual center of consciousness, the head received particular attention from Buddhist artists. In example, the dreamy head of stucco Buddha from Gandhara, the origin of the earliest school of representation, shows the influence of Greece in its similarity to the ad...
As the spiritual center of consciousness, the head received particular attention from Buddhist artists. In example, the dreamy head of stucco Buddha from Gandhara, the origin of the earliest school of representation, shows the influence of Greece in its similarity to the adolescent Apollonian sungod of late Hellenistic art. Two of the thirty-two bodily signs (lakshana) of a Buddha are discernible: the third eye (urna) in the center of the forehead, signifying spiritual insight, and the protuberance at the crown (ushnisha), which represents Enlightenment, when the thousand-petalled lotus at the apex of the subtle body is fully opened. More typically oriental in their willowy stylization are heads of the bodhisattva Miroku (the Japanese Maitreya), the Buddha of the future age, shown pondering the means to achieve the salvation of humanity. They can show a third lakshana, the elongated ear lobes which, although originally perhaps caused by Gautamas princely earrings, came to be a symbol of wisdom.
