Buddha Statues represent the enlightened one, the idol of the Buddhist religion. They are a symbol of Buddhism's founder, Siddhartha Gautama, who preached that to attain Nirvana, a state without suffering, one must eliminate all craving from their life. This can only be done by pursuing the eightfold path.
The primary role of Buddha statues is to convey the calm feelings that reflect ones proper mental discipline as having the control over the negative emotions of fear and greed. However, Buddha statues also serve an important role in conveying teachings, particularly in traditional societies with low literacy rates. While Buddha Statues come in a wide variety of poses, the most common is the Buddha in Lotus Position. This is a position of meditation that symbolizes perfect balance of thought and tranquility. In this statue, the hand positions, called mudra, have the fingers of the right hand resting lightly on the fingers of the left as they lay in the lap of Buddha. The legs are crossed in what is called the Lotus Position. The left foot is placed on the right thigh and the right foot is placed on the left thigh. Many Buddha statues sit on a pedestal in the form of a lotus blossom.
The lotus represents the Buddha Mind because, though growing in mire, it puts forth beautiful, immaculate flowers. Other popular positions include statues with the right hand raised in abhayamudra - the gesture of dispelling fear. These statues symbolize protection and peace in one's home or garden. Statues Calling the Earth to Witness are represented by Buddha's right hand touching the ground in a gesture that symbolizes unshakable faith and resolution. The reclining Buddha representing the Buddha's death and passage to Nirvana symbolizes complete peace and detachment from the world.
Some Buddha statues are actually based on Bodhisattvas, people could have passed to Nirvana, but instead chose to remain in this world out of compassion for other human beings. The Avalokitesvara's main purpose is to listen to the cries for help from those in trouble and provide them with aid. He is the protector from danger and his sacrifice symbolizes infinite compassion, the sharing of mankind's misery and a willingness to help those in distress. The eight arms symbolize his reaching out with compassion to save the world.
Buddhism is a philosophy espoused by Prince Siddhartha approximately 530 BCE, which focused on understanding the path to salvation in a world of constant suffering. Siddhartha was given the name the Buddha, which means "enlightened one," by his followers.
There are two main branches of Buddhism with different practices, but they all have some fundamental similarities. They believe that Siddhartha was the son of a powerful king, and that his father brought him up surrounded by all the pleasures of the world, isolated in the palace, so that Siddhartha would never know sorrow. The prince grew up, married, and had a child, always surrounded by luxury.
But one day, the prince rode through the city outside the palace, and he witnessed suffering for the first time. He saw an elderly man, a diseased man, a corpse and a hermit. The first three sights filled him with dread and despair, while the last sight filled him with peace. For the first time he experienced unhappiness and he wondered why.
Siddhartha slipped out of his palace in the middle of the night, leaving behind his wife and son, and became a hermit determined to find the cause of suffering. He met sages and yogis, meditated and contemplated for six years. He performed great austerities in order to understand the path to enlightenment.
After six years of searching, Siddhartha came to the understanding that "unhappiness is the result of desire and attachment to material items." That is when he became known as the Buddha.
The Buddha taught that everything changes in the world, yet desire makes us crave for eternal material pleasures. When the pleasures wither away, we are unhappy. True happiness arrives when one accepts that change is the ultimate reality of the material world, and that nothing lasts forever.
The Buddha taught that understanding this led to enlightenment, and that enlightenment is the path to breaking free from samsara or material existence. This breaking free is called nirvana.
Just looking at the Buddha Statue you will feel some serenity within you - the proportion of the Buddha, the body, the posture, the way he is sitting, the half-closed eyes. You just sit silently, look at the Buddha statue, and you will start falling into a silence.... It is certainly an experience to sit silently in a Buddhist temple watching a Buddha Statue, just looking at it. And you will be surprised that you start feeling certain qualities - tremendous silence, a great beauty. The centering of the statue somehow creates a synchronicity: you start feeling centered, calm and quiet.... In the East a statue is not made for its own sake: it is made as a code language for the centuries that follow. Scriptures may disappear, languages may change and words may be interpreted. Doctrines can be wrongly interpreted, commented upon. There may be dispute about theories - and there have been - so they thought there must be a different way than language.... Objective art means it has been created deliberately by one who knows what he is doing, who brings something from the other dimension into this world, some form. Just watching that form, a form will arise in you, a song. Just singing that song, you will become something else, a mantra....
For more info about our products Please click on the links below