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Jataka Narrative in Terracotta: Sama

Keywords : Chadok, Bagan, The sculptural series narrating the story of the Buddha’s life

Site common namePiet Leik
Type of artworkSculpture
Province/CityBagan
StateMandalay
CountryMyanmar
Geographic Coordinates
Decimal degree		Lat : 21.148889
Long : 94.8575

ArtPiet Liek Chedi is a bell-shaped chedi of the early Puklam period, influenced by Pala art. The base of the chedi contains 550 naratives scene in terracotta. These scenes are made of terracotta, but have not been enameled in green, which is different from Chavechikong. This shows that these scences may be dated in the pre-Pukam and the early Pukam period.
PeriodHistorical Period
Art periodPagan
Age16-18 centuries BE.
ReligionBuddhism
SectTheravada
Religion and belief550 narative scenes always appear in Chadok scripture and Chadok Autthakatha. It is very common that these scenes are used to decorate religious places in Pukam. This scene is the scene of Sama, one of the ten most important scenes.
Related artworkThe interpretationi is made based on the scene that a human was firing an arrow to a deer that had a pot and a human walking bedise it. All of these can be interpreted as king Pilkayak was firing an arrow to sama, who was on the way to get some water with the help of the deer. On the other side , there were blind hermits, the parents of Sama sitting in their hermitage.

Type of LicenseAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND)
RightsPrincess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre
Date of record creation2015-07-00
Record creatorChedha Tingsanchali