Existing comment:
A Bodhisattva without Jewels
Bodhisattvas typically wear lavish clothing and jewelry. This small bronze, however, resembles an ascetic, one who has given up worldly riches to attain spiritual insight. He has the matted hair (tied in a conical topknot) of an Indian holy man, and he wears only a simple loincloth -- no crown, no bracelets, no silk sarong.
Other images from this region also represent bodhisattvas as renouncers. There may have been a local practice of venerating bodhisattvas for their spiritual accomplishments rather than for their interventions in the world |