Earth as Witness, Shakyamuni Buddha Nepalese Thangka
38" x 23" Framed. Painting: 18" x 15"
Shakyamuni Buddha, at the moment of enlightenment, invoked the earth as witness, as indicated by the fingers of his right hand which spread downward in the gesture of touching the earth. As the Buddhist Sutras relate, the sun and the moon stood still, and all the creatures of the world came to offer obeisance to the Supreme One who had broken through the boundaries of egocentric existence... As the Buddha continually taught, it was not he who was to be revered but the possibility he presented. At the end of his life, Buddha said," Be a light unto yourself". Become  a Buddha, an awakened being, he urged, but never a blind follower of tradition.
Buddha is shown seated on a lotus throne, a symbol of the mind's transcendent nature.  As a lotus rises from the mud to bloom unsullied in open space, so too does one's mind rise through the discord of its own experience to bloom in the boundlessness of unconditional awareness.
This Thangka painting was done by one of the best artists, a monk named the Rose. His liberal use of 24 K gold in the painting lends to the extreme beauty of this piece.
By Romio Shrestha &  Ian Baker: Celestial Gallery
Hand Painted in Nepal by the Rose