Art Bites 5 : Asian Pavilion at Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Rijksmuseum is the biggest museum in Amsterdam and it showcases mostly European art, but it has a whole section dedicated to pieces of art that come from Asia. They are statues to honor the main deities of Hinduism and Buddhism.

This bronze statue comes from India and shows Shiva, in his manifestation as Nataraja ( King of Dancers ). He is encircled by a halo of fire as he is both the creator and destroyer of the world.

This statue that comes from Indonesia represents the bodhisattva Manjushri which is venerated in China as one of the first advocates of Buddhism

This scary dude is Mahakala the second guard a Shiva temple, who stands in his left side. He has demonic characteristics that make him the opposite of the graceful Nandishvara, which is not shown here.

Graceful and peaceful is this lohan from China. Lohans are hermits and followers of the Buddha who have achieved spiritual perfection and safeguard his doctrine until the Buddha of the future appears.

This bronze statue from Indonesia as I understand was used for hanging water containers. Water was an important element in Hindu and Buddhist rituals and had the purpose of purifying the image of the deity.

We travel to Japan to marvel Seishi, a deity that stands for wisdom. He has his hands folded before his chest in obeisance of Amida’s higher power.

We stay on Japanese ground for two temple guardians, that were placed at the entrance to ward off evil.

One of them has his mouth open …

And the other closed…

This represents the first and final syllables of Siddham and thus all spoken words and knowledge. Worshippers who enter the temple they would acquire this knowledge from the guardians.

And we're closing with another guardian figure, this time from China. This one stood at the entrance of a burial chamber.

The decoration of this statue was very costly and shows the high status of the deceased.

That was it.

Hope I haven’t made any mistake with words or names. I just copied the tags of the museum…

Be healthy , Smile and Steem !