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Maya's Dream
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Dimensions: Adjustable
Medium: Digital collage, print on archival paper
Creation Date: 5th August 2020
Medium: Digital collage, print on archival paper
Creation Date: 5th August 2020
This collage is an imitation of a popular Buddhist relief/motif/narrative of Queen Maya who was visited by an elephant in her dream. The elephant entered or touched her right side. Literal Miracle happens a few months later when she gives birth to Buddha. The original depictions show Maya sleeping in her private chambers helped by her attendants holding chauri (fly-whisk), (who are absent in this depiction for understandable reasons).
As one would imagine, the father was absent and Maya was the OG (millennial term for original) virgin mother. Rings a religious bell somewhere? Since Indo-Helenistic art and literature talks A LOT about Maya's dream, it is possible that the story travelled West fitting sufficiently well in another popular person's birth by a virgin mother and an absent father (at least in textual and oral traditions).
As one would imagine, the father was absent and Maya was the OG (millennial term for original) virgin mother. Rings a religious bell somewhere? Since Indo-Helenistic art and literature talks A LOT about Maya's dream, it is possible that the story travelled West fitting sufficiently well in another popular person's birth by a virgin mother and an absent father (at least in textual and oral traditions).
The dream of Queen Maya, Gandhara, c. 100 - 299 AD, British Museum, London
Dream of Maya. Bharhut, c. 100 BCE. Indian Museum, Calcutta
