Offering stand

A variety of elaborately decorated vessels, containers, and stands were made for presenting offerings in Buddhist monasteries. Ornate betel-nut containers used at ceremonies when young men entered monasteries as novices symbolized the luxuries that the Buddha-to-be, Prince Siddhartha, willingly gave up when he embarked on his spiritual career, luxuries that candidates for the novitiate gave up when they followed his example.

We do not know whether this stand was used as we now see it or had another component on the top. The lower edge of the top was originally decorated with a lacquered and gilded cut metal skirt (of which small fragments remain) like that of 2006.27.107.A-.E. The legs have cylindrical holes on their lowermost surfaces, suggesting that the stand may have rested on a square frame, again like 2006.27.107.A-.E. The mythical beasts forming the legs all once had horns of some sort, for which only sockets remain.

The fitting of the top of the stand to the stem is not perfect, and it is possible that they do not belong together.