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I return to the Angkor National Museum to present a second sandstone image of the Mother of All Buddhas Thursday, April 27, 2023
I return to the Angkor National Museum to present a second sandstone image of the Mother of All Buddhas, the goddess Prajnaparamita, easily identified by the tell-tale Amitabha Buddha etched into the front of her conical bun headdress. Prajnaparamita was a hugely popular iconic deity in the reign of Jayavarman VII from the last quarter of the 12th century, encapsulated by the cult the King established of portraying his deceased loved-ones with the characteristics of either the goddess of the perfection of wisdom, or as the all-seeing Bodhisattva Lokeshvara in the case of his father. It was the King’s second wife, Indradevi, who erected honorific images of the King’s first wife and her younger sister, Jayarajadevi, who died not long after he became king in 1181AD, in major cities and temples throughout the Khmer Empire. Hence the proliferation of these sculptures at the time, either as life-size stone statues or as part of a triad of bronze images alongwith Lokeshvara and Buddha. Her portrayal as devoutly religious though with a serene and meditative face, implies a strong resemblance to the queen, who was known for her innumerable good deeds and her generosity, but who died young and likely suffered from frail health. The EFEO labelled our standing deity as being found at or near the Bayon temple in Angkor Thom (which was first cleared by Jean Commaille around 1912) and was photographed for the first time in 1921 in the National Museum collection. She stands at over five feet in height and is pretty much identical to the kneeling exhibit I posted recently, again without arms and attributes (which would’ve been a book and an unopened lotus bud), but has unusually large feet under her damaged sampot, with a wide belt and inverted fishtail pleat. She was transferred for display at the Angkor National Museum in 2007.
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