National Museum of Asian Art
The Bodhisattva Mile (Sanskrit Maitreya), seated in "Pensive Pose"
ca. 575
This sculpture of a bodhisattva, or enlightened being, probably represents the Buddha of the Future (Maitreya in the Indian language Sanskrit) while he was waiting to be reborn into the world as a Buddha. Maitreya waits in heaven meditating beneath a Dragon Tree, which Chinese sculptors typically interpreted to be a ginkgo, like the tree here. The depiction of children emerging from lotuses in a pond on the base of this sculpture is a rare detail on an image of Maitreya.
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