Dorothy C. Wong, Professor of Art History at the University of Virginia, will give a public lecture exploring the “First Images” of the Buddha and why they hold a special status in Buddhist imagery.

Derived from the prototype allegedly commissioned by King Udayana and made in the likeness of the Buddha, the prototype and its copies possess attributes commonly associated with miraculous images, including supernatural forces in creation, mobility or immobility, light emission, and protective power. From China to Japan, Mongolia, and Tibet, the so-called Udayan Buddhas were widely worshiped. Acquisitions of Udayan Buddha statues enabled monastic institutions to claim religious orthodoxy and empowered royal patrons to assert legitimacy. Two distinct types of Udayana Buddha images exist, yet scholars have not connected the different parts of this cult into an understanding of a larger phenomenon, nor explained the coexistence of two distinct visual types. Wong will argue that analytic tools that art historians deploy — from visual analysis to the study of the mobility and circulation of artistic models and styles, and the special values attached to a particular styles of iconography — can contribute to an expanded notion of the materiality of religion that textual study alone cannot achieve.