Parts of Eight Buddha’s Life Scenes: Mural in Lokathiekpan

Keywords : Life of Buddha, Bagan, Shwesandaw, Lokathiekpan

Site common name	Lokathiekpan
Type of artwork	Painting
Village	-
Province/City	Bagan
State	Mandalay
Country	Myanmar
Geographic Coordinates Decimal degree	Lat : 21.165 Long : 94.865278

History of production	Lokathiekpan is a small temple near to Shwesandaw. Despite lacking of documentary evidence, the style of this temple suggests the date of Mid-Pagan Art, late 17th Buddhist Century.
Art	The paintings use the Pala’s patterns such as the use of hot tone colors. These traits are similar to the paintings in the the bailan scriptures found in eastern India and Myanmar.
Period	Historical Period
Art period	Pagan
Age	16th -18th century BE.
Religion	Buddhism
Sect	Theravada
Religion and belief	Mural at Lokatheikpan is the best example of the iconographic combination between the painting and the sculpture as the central figure is enlightenment Buddha in sculpture surrounded by the other seven scenes in the form of painting. This iconographic program follows the diagram of Astamahapatiharya or the group of the eight great events from the Buddha’s life. The representation of eight scenes was very popular before in Pala art which also represents the important pilgrimage sites.
Related artwork	The paintings featured 3 stories from Buddha’s Life Scenes; Defeating Nalagiri Elephant (on the top), The first Preaching (in the middle), and The Monkey’s Offering (on the bottom). The Iconography of these 3 paintings emulates from the Pala Iconography. However, some of the traits of local Iconography are founbd as well. For instance, the stacking of 2 elephants in the Defeating Nalagiri Elephant part. The utmost top is the painting of Mara’s Army which is the part of Mara's Defeat story.

Type of License	Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND)
Rights	Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre
Date of record creation	2015-07-00
Record creator	Chedha Tingsanchali