A WOOD FIGURE OF SHAKA NYORAI (BUDDHA SHAKYAMUNI)

This sculpture depicts the moment at which Shakyamuni achieves his enlightenment at the site of Bodh Gaya in Northeastern India. Shakyamuni was born into the royal Shakya Clan as Gautama Siddhartha in what today is Nepal around 563 BC. Though a crown prince, Prince Siddhartha rejected worldly life as well as all claim to his father’s throne, espoused the religious life, attained enlightenment, preached the Four Noble Truths and the Eight-fold Path, and, on his death at age eighty, c. 483 BC, entered nirvana. The Four Noble Truths and the Eight-fold Path constitute the basic, foundational teachings of Buddhism. His teachings appear in many Buddhist sutras but are best reflected in the Saddharma Pundarika Sutra, known in English as the Lotus Sutra. Since the time of his enlightenment he has been known as Shakyamuni, or the Lion of the Shakya Clan; as an historical person, he has also come to be known as the Historical Buddha.