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Miniature Votive Stupa, AD 435. steatite, Overall: 16.9 cm (6 5/8 in.). Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund, 1990.84. CC0.
Miniature Votive Stupa
AD 435
Maker Unknown
Chinese Art
Miniature Votive Stupa, AD 435. China, Gansu province, Northern Wei dynasty (386-534). Steatite; overall: 16.9 cm (6 5/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1990.84 There are trigrams, three horizontal lines, broken or continuous, above each of the eight bodhisattvas in the stupa's lower section.
Translation: The middle registered is inscribed in in kaishu, regular, script calligraphy with an extract from the Ekottaragama sutra. The text includes the twelve links in the chain of existence (nidanas), said to be the object of Sakyamuni’s meditation on the night of his enlightenment, followed by a dedicatory inscription signed by four lay disciples, and an expressed hope that all sentient beings gain enlightenment.