Buddha Statues

The statues and figurines of Buddha we see all around us are the statues of Shakyamuni Siddhartha Gautama the “Buddha” who was born in Kapilavastu, an ancient province of Nepal, as the son of king Suddhodana and Queen Maya Devi. The Queen had few auspicious dreams before the lord entered her womb from the Tushita heaven.
As Prince Siddhartha Gautama came to the age 28 he renounced the kingdom and lived the life of a mendicant. He sought and attained enlightenment in six years under a pipala tree and became a Buddha, in Bodhgaya. After enlightenment he uttered this stanza:
“Through many births I have passed the builder of the house of pain is gone and I am free from any more births”
Shakyamuni Buddha preached dharma through out his life and the light of the world had gone out and lord passed away into Nirvana at an old age of over 80.
Talking of Buddha statues & figurines, the statues of Buddha are found in a wide variety of poses, the most common of all the type is the sitting Buddha statue in a lotus position. The posture displays inner and outer balance and tranquillity. In meditating Buddha statues the posture of the hand or the mudra, have the fingers of the right hand resting lightly on the left as they lay in the enlightened one’s lap and legs are crossed in a Lotus position. Many Buddha statues sit on a pedestal in a lotus blossom which represents the enlightened being or emptiness.
Another posture is the Abhaya mudra in which the right hand is raised and is the gesture of dispelling fear. Statues calling the earth to bear witness are represented by postures where the right hand is touching the earth below, which displays total faith. And, finally the reclining Buddha statue represents Buddha’s passage into death or Nirvana, as the disciples, angles and gods bade farewell to never returner Shakyamuni Buddha. Medicine Buddha statue symbolizes the belief that Buddha parted knowledge on medicine along with spiritual guidance.
The Mudras or postures of Hands of the Shakyamuni Buddha figures are either in abhaya (Fearlessness), Dhyana (meditation), Dharmachakra Parivartana (turning of the wheel of Dharma or doctrine or religion) and Bhumisparsa (calling the earth goddess to witness the touching of the earth by the right hand)
Buddha statues are hand made and thus they are artisan’s labour of Love, or a loving heart and moving hands giving them shapes in definite postures. The earliest representations of Buddha were mounds erected on the relics of Buddha, also known as “Stupa”. The external decorations on the stupas display the entire life of the Buddha from leaving home to enlightenment and to Mahaparinirvana.
The largest and tallest Buddha statues were found in Afghanistan which were colossal in size and have been much recently destroyed by the Taliban’s. The Statues of Buddha in Nepal are generally made out of gold, granite, bronze, copper, brass, resin, silver, ceramic, wood, etc. And, they are put on sale in a fine work of display in Thamel and Durbar Square in the ancient city of Kathmandu in Nepal or sold in various online Buddha Statues store like http://himalayacrafts.com at wholesale or retail. The standing Buddha statues with flowering robes is also common. And Buddha heads and hands are also found for sale.
All these meanings behind the Buddha statues bring forth the memories of the enlightened master who once walked upon this earth 2500 years ago. In other words they are reminiscences of the “Grand Master”.

Passion for my Nation “Nepal”

Mother, I sense your soul. These few words express empathy towards a nation where dreams do begin but surprisingly never seem to cease where love flows like rivulets from the Himalayas and reach out hearts, where endurance has survived pain, and hands filled with love have pushed the nation on a track of peace and harmony. Peace and harmony that have emerged out of struggle, reflecting that peace that is seen in the silent and forbearing eyes of the god man named Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha whose holy feet touched the dust of this nation many centuries ago.

The sight of Everest touching the sky is like hands of the Nepalese people moving forth into eternal space to hold and embrace the stars.

The process of denouement is slow but steady; the city lights are dazzling and sense of loneliness prevails in narrow streets where night rules. The people are almost dead to the world but Nepal is awake as ever.

Time moves in a horizontal line, from A to B, B to C, C to D but awakening moves in a vertical line, from A to deeper A, from deeper A to even deeper A and so on. For an awakened nation these is no past and no future, only present exists for it.

Awareness or the awakening of consciousness through meditation is the awakening of a mankind and path towards Buddha hood. The awakening of every Nepalese is the awakening of the Nepalese society. Complete mass or a community living and moving in the present just deeper and deeper in a vertical motion.

“Take me to far away country where grief lingers no more…….”

An awakened community is an aware and meditative community, a basis of emptiness and establishment of that faraway country.

But a mass can’t be enlightened, each drop of water makes up the ocean, one Buddha after another makes up a community of Buddha’s

The mountains go zigzag finally disappearing into time. That time which only exists in your mind in your imagination and in your wall clock. Everything exists in the present, and that present moves from one point to another point steadily and quickly.

It is a love affair, an affair of one night stand, between a country and its people. The people can sense something or almost touch it: perhaps it is the soul of a nation, which they are dandling with their imagination.

Imagine you have been stabbed in the chest, a moment and the dragger is to be plunged deep into your heart. Suddenly you are alert and your reaction is in tune with the moment, or suddenly it is as though you and the moment are one present has arisen out of no where and past and future have vanished like shadows.

In a similar situation our country stands and the people are reacting in an instant as though the instant and the reaction have merged into one cry for peace, stability and pathway for hope.

Hope floats even in a sea of complete uncertainty and tears just because the pain is there, the country is consciously moving in a vertical motion – from a deeper anguish in her bosom and the future stir blurred. Let a nation up rise as her people sway in search of a bay.

Let love finds its way, let the sun shine through the clouds and let the rain cease.

The delicate sounds of a song are echoing within their hearts, which have resemblance to many voices of the night. They close their eyes and softly whisper. “Mother, I sense your soul”

The faraway hills seem to have heard them, but they seem to resist the temptation to speak back: surely they are not without a voice, there is a voice if silence with in that resistance.

These voices and these songs of the Nepalese people altogether seem to re- quicken the cosmic pulsation.

बुद्ध Statues

Buddha Statues are a symbol of the founder of Buddhism, Siddhartha Gautama a man who was born as a Prince in Nepal 2,500 years ago who preached to attain Nirvana, a primary aim of Buddhism to break free of the wheel of Samsara.

“Buddha” is not a name it’s a title, meaning the “enlightened one”, understanding life in the deepest way possible. One can achieve this only by eradicating all the lust from one’s life by engaging in the eight fold path.

A statue of the Buddha effectuates and reminds us of our vows to persevere our spiritual and meditation practices. Buddha statues tranquillises our mind builds up serenity within us to overcome or control the negative emotions of fear, greed jealousy and hatred hence creating a devotion and uplifting the mind and focusing attention from reality of the material world. Anyway the Buddhists consider that the most important function of a Buddha statue is to communicate self-discipline and peace of mind.

Nepal being the land of Buddha’s birth we have a wide variety of Buddha sculptures, Buddha figurines found all over the country in different postures and poses. The most common sculptures of Buddha are Buddha in Padmasana meaning Buddha in lotus position, Meditation Buddha also called Amitabha Buddha, Buddha in Abhaymudra, Buddha in Reclining Position, Dhayni Buddha, Bhaishajya Guru Buddha, Bodhisattva Buddha statues like Manjushri Buddha Statue and the Akshobhya Buddha. Statues of the Medicine Buddha and Maitreya Buddha are also popular where as the most adorable and accepted forms of the statues are the Laughing Buddha or the Happy Buddha. The Laughing Buddha statue is actually a Chinese monk called Ho Tai who was believed to be the re-incarnation of the Buddha by the Chinese people. Each position of the Lord’s statues depicts a different meaning.

Prayer Wheels / Mani Wheels

Prayer Wheels / Mani Wheels

Tibetan prayer wheels also called Mani wheels by the Tibetans are holy ritual objects for spreading and distributing spiritual blessings positive and well wishes for all beings to invoke good karma. A prayer wheel is a wheel on a spindle, and on the wheel are rolls of thin paper, imprinted with numerous copies of the mantra or prayers “Om Mani Padme Hum” these mantras are usually in an ancient Indian script or in Tibetan script which are wounded around an axle in a protective container which is then rotated continuously. Attached to the cylinder is a lead weight with a chain, which facilitates the rotation. Larger decorative versions of the syllables of the mantra are also found carved on the outside cover of the prayer wheel.

According to the Tibetan Buddhists belief chanting these mantras loudly or silently to one, or even viewing them has the same effect which invokes the powerful benevolent attention and blessings of Chenrezig, the embodiment of compassion. Tibetans spinning the written form of the mantra around in a Mani wheel believe that every rotation of a prayer wheel equals one utterance of the mantra so more copies of the mantra, the more the religious practice will in return help them accumulate merits, replace negative vibes with positive ones, and hence bringing good karma for the future and next life.

Turning the prayer wheel is Buddhist religious exercise a part of their lives, people turn these Mani wheels or Prayer wheels day and night for hours and hours while waking or resting whenever their right hand is free are murmuring the mantra “Om Mani Padme Hum” over and over again. Buddhist pilgrims use the prayer wheel for meditation and healing.

Buddhists turn the wheel clockwise. Just touching and turning a prayer wheel brings incredible purification and accumulates unbelievable merit. When a Buddhist practitioner walks around the installation in a clockwise direction and rubs each one with the right hand as he or she passes, the wheels are sent rotating. In the interiors, thousands of mantras are thought to be activated as the drums on which they are inscribed rotate.

Tibetans innovated Tibetan prayer wheel, the earliest known mention of prayer wheels is in an account written by a Chinese pilgrim, in 400 AD, while travelling through the area now known as Ladakh. The idea has its origins in a play on the Sanskrit phrase 'to turn the wheel of the law' meaning 'to teach the Dharma' which refers to the event when Shakyamuni Buddha began to preach".

In today’s world Tibetan prayer wheels have not simply remained in Tibet. Since the 1950s, when tens of thousands of Tibetans became refugees, dharma wheels have begun turning in new lands unlike the Tibetan culture. Tibetan prayer wheels vary in size from small (from 3 inches in height) to Larger Tibetan prayer wheels, which may be several yards (meters) high and one or two yards (meters) in diameter containing myriad copies of the mantra, and may also contain sacred texts, up to hundreds of volumes. Tibetan prayer wheel are not only hand held it is common a bucket-sized Tibetan prayer wheels lined up on wooden racks along walking paths circling monasteries and other sacred sites, for the benefit of visiting pilgrims. Large Tibetan prayer wheels are built so that they are empowered by the flowing water, the flaming light, and the blowing wind which drive them, and can later pass their positive karma to all who touch them.

It is also said that if you have a prayer wheel in your house, your house is the same as the Potala, the pure land of the Compassion Buddha.

We here at www.himalayacrafts.com have a variety of selected Tibetan Prayer Wheels for online sale made by qualified and experienced craftsmen from Nepal and Tibetan people living in Nepal. If you want additional information on Prayer Wheel or Mani Wheel simply send us a mail at sales@himalayacrafts.com