Dipankara Buddha: Standing Full Gold Antique Style

22cm high, full metal statue finished in antique gold.

Dipankara Buddha is the previous Buddha to Shakyamuni or Gautama Buddha, the Buddha of our time. He is generally represented as a sitting Buddha, but his depictions as a standing Buddha are common in China, Thailand, and Nepal; with the right hand he generally forms a protection mudra (abhaya mudra), and often he forms it with both hands. This statue seems based on the 7th century statue in a niche of Swayambhunath, in Kathmandu.

One story shown in Buddhist art has Gautama Buddha in a former incarnation known as Sumedha, a rich Brahmana turned hermit kneeling and laying his long black hair on the ground, in an act of piety that the Dipankara Buddha could cross a puddle of mud without soiling his feet.

This meeting between Dipankara and Sumedha occurred many lifetimes before Sumedha's eventual enlightenment as Gautama Buddha (Shakyamuni). From this act, Dipankara told Sumedha "In the ages of the future you will come to be a Buddha called 'Shakyamuni'",[4] to which Sumedha replied, "I am to become a Buddha, awakened to enlightenment; may you tread with your feet on my hair - on my birth, old age, and death."

Dipankara then said, "Freed from human existence, you will become an effective teacher, for the sake of the world. Born among the Shakyas, as the epitome of the Triple World, the Lamp of all Beings, you will be known as Gautama. You will be the son of King Suddhodana and Queen Maya. Sariputta and Moggallana will be your chief disciples. Your caretaker will be named Ananda."

By the 17th century, Dipankara had become a figure of veneration in Nepalese Buddhist communities. These followers consider him a protector of merchants and associate him with alms-giving. He is also considered the protector of sailors, and sometimes statues of Dipankara are found on the coastline to guide and protect the ships in their route.