This serene looking sculpture is of Buddha and was excavated from Sarnath, near Banaras, Uttar Pradesh. It is made of stone. It is currently being displayed at the Buddhist gallery in the National Museum, New Delhi.

The early spread of Buddhism in the 5 and 6 BCE across northern India had much to owe to the trading routes that connected the 16 Mahajanapadas of ancient India as traders formed a substantial percentage of the followers of the new religion. Magadha (encompassing modern-day Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bangladesh and Nepal) played an important role in the development of Jainism and Buddhism.

The Gupta period witnessed a substantial growth in the number and size of Buddhist monasteries. While Gupta kings are generally linked with the promotion of Hinduism some of them even extended their patronage to the beliefs of Buddhism. The text Manjushrimulakalpa, which dates back to 800 AD points out Narasimhagupta became a Buddhist monk and spent his life practising meditation until he finally gave up his life through dhyana. Some Gupta rulers are also believed to have built monasteries at Nalanda.

This particular sculpture is seen as the epitome of the Gupta ability to capture spirituality in Indian art. The Buddha is looking inwards, away from the material aspects of life, his eyes half closed suggests that he is in meditation. His features are well molded, he has clearly defined eyes, nose, and lips. His hair is cut short and coiled in spirals around the head. The sculptor’s play with light and shade over the eyebrows earn the age its tag as the “Golden age of Indian history and art”. Also, note the lines on his neck and elongated ears which are known to be ‘Mahapurusha Lakshana’ the signs of an extraordinary man.

Indian art has historically championed it’s mastery of the eternal, internal and spiritual as opposed to Western art that celebrates the perfection of space, proportion and rational naturalism as the metric for “great art”. This head of a sculpture of Buddha would be seen as a prime example of that eternal debate between the Orient and Occident

Buddhism as a philosophy is understood to be a path, a way of life that is believed to transform a person since it is linked to salvation (the break away from the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth) The core of the Buddha's teachings lies in four noble truths according to which all life is suffering, the cause of suffering is ignorant desire, this desire can be destroyed, the means to this is the Eightfold Path.