Four-armed Maitreya
1172
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
1172
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Four-armed Maitreya is a 1172 unspecified by Unknown, depicting avalokiteshvara, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a golden statue of a seated Buddha with four arms, each holding a small object—a wheel, a vase, a lotus, and a gesture of teaching. This figure is Maitreya, the future Buddha. The extra arms show his power to help many people at once. The style comes from a remote kingdom in western Tibet around 800 years ago, when artists mixed Indian and local traditions. To see more works like this, look up western tibet [or kashmir (?)], guge school (?), c. early 13th century.
