Posted 12 months ago
ho2cultcha
(540 items)
i really love this painted iron buddha i purchased last year. i'd love to know more about it - like how old it is, where it was made, why the strange paint, etc...
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I have two of the same exact Buddha's made of stone in my garden. The stone ones are fairly popular. The iron ones you can pick up in some stores still. Their pretty much just replica's of the Great Buddha. Really just mass produced pieces.
I jammed my toes on mine of times.
do you have a photo of yours i could see? i haven't seen an exact one like this before.
i don't think that this is a mass-produced piece as you say jmack. i've seen a lot of buddhas, and this one is pretty unusual - particularly for the paint color. it has quite a bit of age to it as well - probably from the 1920s - possibly 1930s.
This store has some that seem to be fairly close
okstore.la/gallery.php?id=127
I ll take a photo of the stone ones tomorrow. It is the replica of Daibutsu in Kamakura, which seem to be fairly popular. I haven't seen many painted though and yes yours seems to be fairly old. While yours might be before the explosion of eastern religions in America...it very much resembles Buddha statues that have been popular since the sixties. I'm assuming it is hallow? Here is one on worth point...he thinks its from the 60s/70s. This one resembles yours too.
Either way its unique in its aging and color. Whats better then a Buddha that stands the test of time.
thank you for the link and comments jmack. i agree that it is a replica of the Daibutsu in Kamakura, Japan. i have searched and searched for a color image of that Buddha and have not found any at all. The very white skin and pink/red lips is unique too. it is hollow and very rusty inside. it's quite a bit larger than the statues in the link. it is a little over 10 inches tall and 9 inches wide. i'm very interested in any further insite anyone would care to provide.
i'm sitting here in my office surrounded by 26 Buddha images - the oldest ones i have are chromolithograph prints made in 1902 and 1904. All of my statues are modern, and a couple are from the 60s. i agree that they are often very colorful, but older ones which retain their color are not - particularly certain images like the Great Buddha of Kamakura and even less common are old, painted iron buddhas. i haven't found a single image of this type with color on it. there probably are some, but they certainly aren't common. It very well may have been this colorful before the building that housed it was destroyed in the 1400s[?], but we don't know for sure. almost all the 'antique' buddhas i see for sale are fakes, and there are so many great ways to fake them, that it can be very difficult to tell what is real. i have a hunch that this one is real - old anyways. i think that it dates to at least the early 1900s, but would love to find out for sure.
thank you robinhawaii. this is very helpful. when i first moved here to the bay area, i became friends w/ a buddhist monk named Issan Dorsey who died in 1993. he taught me the following - which i believe is the japanese pronunciation of the sanskrit sacred heart sutra:
Kan ze on
Na mu butsu
Yo butsu u in
Yo butsu u en
Bup po so en
Jo raku ga jo
Cho nen Kan ze on
Bo nen Kan ze on
Nen nen ju shin ki
Nen nen fu ri shin
i had no idea that it was connected to my ghostly buddha w/ the yellow robe until last night when i was researching it. this kind of thing is exactly why i love collecting. it forces me to learn all kinds of interesting stuff and make connections which i would ordinarily miss out on. thanks again for sharing the light!