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Nāga protected Buddha Khmer style, 14th century. National Museum, Ayudhya.
Elegantly
adorned with diadem, earrings and necklace, the Buddha sits splendidly with
his hands folded calmly in his lap in the posture of yoga. Three thick coils
of the nāga's body form the Buddha's throne while the serpent's
dilated seven-headed hood rears up behind the Buddha's head in a protective,
almost cocooning manner. With dilated neck taking shape of a hood, the cobra
has long been a royal emblem; feminine, majestic, and deeply mysterious. It
is the naja of Egypt, the nāga of India. It is also known as
kundalinī. While largely overlooked in Buddhist traditions, this
Universal symbol of the transfigurative power of primordial nature
nonetheless appears in the well-known legend of the Mucalinda Nāga, which
this icon depicts. Nowhere in India or Southeast Asia did this
quintessentially yogic image become so popular as among the Khmer, who
expressed the motif's special trance-like nature with extraordinary passion
and sculptural genius.
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