Just after the birth of his son, and despite him being the likely heir to his father’s throne, he suffered what we might now describe as an existential crisis. This was the time often referred to as the Axial Age, where thinkers in Israel, Greece, China as well as in India began to place a much greater importance on ethics rather than the outward performance of religious ceremony (in Indian terms, the Vedic sacrifice.) Siddhartha Guatama was born in the 6th C BCE, in a time of rapid economic and political change not only in his locality in the Gangetic Plain but across the Old World. This article will attempt to give a brief historical survey of the Buddhist contexts which produced such fascinating and artistically accomplished figures. Tibetan gilt-bronze figure of Buddha SakyamuniĬollectors beginning to study Buddhist art rapidly become aware of the large variety of figures represented, not only in terms of the cultures and times from which they emerged, but also in terms of the beliefs they represent. Buddhism is also a growing spiritual presence in the West, often (and often wrongly) because it is sometimes considered not to require assent to a series of beliefs. The rapid increase in travel over the last century has led to many people globally becoming familiar with the figure of the Buddha, and very many Buddhist statues are now to be found in the West, from the sublime figures in the major museum collections to the more commonplace ones to be found along virtually every High Street.
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