Minneapolis Institute of Art

Sarira reliquary in the shape of a pavillion

Korea

Date

8th century

Medium

Gilt bronze

Department

Asian Art

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

Since the early years of Buddhism in South Asia, Buddhists have enshrined funerary relics in stupas, or burial mounds. As Buddhism spread to Northeast Asia in subsequent centuries, thousands of stupas—often tower-like and dubbed “pagodas’” in the West—were constructed, each embedded with bone fragments or other relics (sarira) housed within a multi-layered reliquary. The present work is the innermost container of such a reliquary. Made of gilt bronze, it takes of the shape of a palatial building, decorated at the base with downturned lotus petals and a lavishly adorned, detachable roof. Inside is a small, lotus-shaped rest for the container that would have held the actual relics. Based on other extant Korean reliquaries from this period, the missing container was likely a glass jar or bottle. This inner reliquary would itself have been housed in a larger casket made of gilt bronze or stone and embedded within a pagoda on the precincts of a temple.

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