Buddha dated 338

Buddha Dated 338

This statue is the earliest known dated Buddha sculpture produced in China, with an inscription on its base mentioning the year 338. This date is about four hundred years after Buddhism was introduced from India to China. Originally from an altar shrine, this Buddha statue was once seated on a platform and adorned with a canopy and two halos. It is among the largest bronze sculptures to have survived from the fourth century, when Chinese Buddha images were heavily influenced by the art of ancient Gandhara in modern Pakistan, Afghanistan, and India.

Chinese characteristics make this statue an important milestone in the development of Buddhist art in China. The figure’s arrangement, with legs crossed beneath an evenly draped robe and set on a rectangular pedestal, is probably modeled after a Gandharan prototype brought to China via the Silk Road. However, this Buddha’s overlapping, inward-facing palms are adopted from a formal Chinese gesture of reverence. His face, hairstyle, robe, and throne have also been adapted according to Chinese preferences to attract native devotees.

The social and political chaos and the invasions of nomadic peoples from the north contributed to the rapid spread of Buddhism among various ethnic groups who all sought spiritual relief and a better afterlife. The fragmentary inscription on the back of the base indicates this statue belonged to the Later Zhao kingdom (319–351), a kingdom founded in Hebei by a nomadic people who eventually controlled most of northern China. It was in this kingdom where Buddhism became a state-sponsored, widespread religion after being a minority religion for hundreds of years.

This statue was commissioned by a monk who  was probably a foreign disciple of the famous Indian monk Fotudeng. Fotudeng arrived in the Central Plains in 310, preaching the Buddhist faith and seeking converts. He was trusted by Later Zhao rulers as a miraculous and venerated master and served as the principal religious counsel and military adviser in their campaigns to expand the territory. To worship Buddha for blessings of victory, these non-Han rulers commissioned the building of large-scale temples, the construction of ornamented grottoes, and the mass production of Buddhist statues.

The partial inscription on the base reads:
建武四年, 歲在戊戌, 八月卅日, 比丘竺... 慕道德...及三...生。
In the fourth year of the Jianwu reign era (338), the year of wuxu, on the 30th of the eighth lunar month, a monk named Zhu...respect moral and virtue...and three...livings.