Carved from dolomite marble in Sri Lanka's Anuradhapura kingdom, most commonly dated to the third or fourth century, this statue shows the Buddha seated cross legged with his hands folded palm upward in his lap in the dhyana mudra, the gesture of meditative absorption. It originally stood as one of four identical Buddha images set at the four points around a sacred Bodhi tree shrine, a bodhighara, and is the only one of the four to have survived largely intact. It was found fallen to the ground with a damaged nose when rediscovered at its present site near the Abhayagiri Monastery's twin ponds in 1886. Its own name, in both Sinhala and English, records what it depicts directly rather than any episode: samadhi, the state of deep meditative absorption itself.
Facts
Origins
CreationSourced to the subject's own account Date of CreationThird to fourth century CE, most commonly cited (Anuradhapura period) 1 Sourced to the subject's own accountMost popular and archaeological accounts place the statue in the third or fourth century CE; some later published estimates widen the range as late as the sixth century. The earlier, more commonly cited range is used here rather than presented as the only view. Attributed ToUnknown sculptor (Anuradhapura period workshop, Sri Lanka) 1 Sourced to the subject's own accountNo individual sculptor is named for Anuradhapura period devotional stone images of this kind, and none is recorded for this piece; noted as unattributed rather than left silent. Custody
Current LocationSourced to the subject's own accountMahamevnawa Park, Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka 1 Current CustodianSourced to the subject's own accountDepartment of Archaeology, Sri Lanka (in situ) 1 Custody HistorySourced to the subject's own accountRediscovered fallen to the ground with a damaged nose near the Abhayagiri Monastery's twin ponds in 1886, having originally stood as one of four identical Buddha images set around a sacred Bodhi tree shrine; it is the only one of the four to have survived largely intact. 1 Physical Form
MediumSourced to the subject's own account DimensionsSourced to the subject's own accountHeight 7 feet 3 inches (2.21 meters) 1 Subject Matter
Depicted SubjectSourced to the subject's own accountThe Buddha seated in the dhyana mudra, the meditation gesture, presenting the state of samadhi, deep meditative absorption, directly as its entire subject rather than narrating an episode from his life. 1 Devotional FunctionSourced to the subject's own accountOne of four Buddha images originally set around a Bodhi tree shrine at the Abhayagiri Monastery, standing for veneration and as an aid to meditation practice rather than narrative teaching. 1 Learn More
A Statue With No Story to Tell
Nearly every Buddha image in stone or bronze asks a viewer to recognize a moment: the touching of the earth at the instant of enlightenment, the raised hand of the first sermon, the reclining figure of the final passing. This statue asks for something different. It shows the Buddha seated, hands folded palm over palm in his lap, eyes lowered, and nothing else happens. There is no gesture calling out to an audience, no narrative cue placing the moment inside a sequence of events from a life.
That absence is the whole point. The posture is the dhyana mudra, the gesture of meditation, and the state that gesture names is samadhi, a settled, one pointed absorption in which the ordinary scatter of thought has stilled into a single continuous awareness. A narrative image asks a viewer to recall a story. This one asks a viewer to recognize a condition, available in principle to anyone who sits the same way, rather than an episode that happened once to one person in one place.
Sri Lankan tradition and scholarship alike read the statue this way, and its own name preserves the reading directly. It is not called the First Sermon Statue or the Enlightenment Statue, either of which would name an event. It is called the Samadhi Statue, naming the state of mind itself.
The One of Four That Survived
This statue did not always stand alone. Archaeological study of the site places it as one of four nearly identical Buddha images, originally set at the four points around a bodhighara, a shrine built around a sacred Bodhi tree in the ancient city of Anuradhapura. Of the four, only the north facing statue described here survived largely intact into the modern era. What became of the other three, whether they were destroyed, removed, or simply never rediscovered, is not part of the archaeological record that has come down with this one.
Even the survivor did not have an easy history. It was found in 1886 lying fallen on the ground at its present site, its nose broken, centuries after the kingdom that built it had declined and the site around it had gone unmaintained. What is now a carefully protected archaeological monument within Mahamevnawa Park spent an unknown span of time simply lying where it had fallen.
The statue's later reach extended well beyond Sri Lanka. Jawaharlal Nehru, independent India's first prime minister, is recorded as having kept a photograph of it during his years of imprisonment under British rule, later writing that the image had become a companion to him, offering a kind of steadiness his circumstances did not. A stone carved to depict absorption ended up, centuries later and thousands of miles from its original context, offering something like that same steadiness to a man who had never seen it in person.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Depicts
Unlike an ordinary seated Buddha image, this statue's own historical and present-day name IS the doctrine word itself: it presents the state of meditative absorption directly as its whole subject rather than narrating any episode from the Buddha's life.
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