Dismembered Buddhas

I just got back from the Royal Ontario Museum, and a large number of the statues of Buddhas were missing their hands. A lot of them were otherwise undamaged, so it didn’t seem like a result of wear and tear.

None of the plaques that I saw mentioned it, and Google isn’t able to explain it either, so does anyone have any idea?

Well, I’m just guessing here, but I believe that Buddha sculptors liked to depict very specific (and sometimes intricate) hand gestures for their buddhas. I suppose that, for convenience, they would carve the hands seperately and then attach 'em … making the hands easy to lose.

I’d think also that the hand would be a tempting target for antiquities theft.

When Japan invaded Korea during its Imperial days, they cut off a LOT of Buddha heads. Korea was heavily Buddhist at various times, and the Japanese imperialists were often hostile to native belief systems wherever they invaded. That’s one explanation that I’ve heard, anyway.

I’d guess war damage and religious in-fighting. Temples were often not sanctuaries as they can be today.

My WAG would be that they are of Chinese origin and damage is a result of cultural revolution. They were cutting off thumbs of Buddhist monks, so why not hands of Buddha statues?

I suspect a lot of damage isn’t intentional, but the result of wear and tear on statues made up of different parts. I’ve seen European Medieval statues missing hands and the like, because they were made separately, then attached. The wrists, where they were joined, were weak spos, and if a statue lost a hand it might not be easy to replace, especially in the same style. And Museums would rather display an incomplete but fully authentic statue than graft on modern parts.

That was my guess too.

Intentional damage is harder to believe, as a rampaging vandal would surely deface the buddhas as well as or instead of de-handing them - it is I would imagine easy to smash a nose off with (say) a rifle butt or handy hammer.

Well, in some cases the statues have holes in the forearms where you could slot-in a detachable hand. That being said, just as almost all of the Greek and Roman statues were missing their noses and penises, almost all of the Buddhas were missing their hands, and not all of them had the holes in their forearms.

I’ve emailed the Museum, but I’m not expecting much of a response, if any at all.

Have you ever seen Night at the Museum?

Can’t say that I have.

Anyways, the ROM got back to me with a much more detailed answer than I was expecting: