Terracotta Buddhist

Votive Sealings

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An Introduction to Buddhist Votive Sealings.

Terracotta Buddhist votive sealings

containing a Sanskrit text.

These examples date from the

8th -12th century CE.

The sealings are from Eastern India.

The Bronze seal is from Pakistan.

The seal number links to an individual page for each seal where you will be able to examine the sealing further and read its description entry.

Notes and Observations

The texts are written is in Brahmi scripts and are a passage from the Ramayana.

Sealings 1 through 9 all appear to contain the same text in various scripts. The text is probably the Buddhist creed.

The sealings have been grouped into types based on the seal used to create them. The type designations used for this exhibition do not correspond to any published catalog or reference work.

Seal types 1 and 1a are almost identical, but careful examination reveals the characters on type 1a are slightly larger than those of type 1 and were clearly derived from a different seal.   The use of multiple copies of the "same" seal give some indication of the mass-production nature of these Buddhist offerings.

Sealing 11 contains a different script from all the other sealings, possibly it contains a different text as well.

The impression on sealing 11 is mostly illegible, but is clearly different from the other seals.

Small patches of red or green appearing on any of the artifact images are imaging artifacts.

Bronze Seal

Seal Type 6

	Sealing No. 1 Seal type 1
	Sealing No. 2 Seal type 1
	Sealing No. 3 Seal type 1a
	Sealing No. 4 Seal type 1a
	Sealing No. 5 Seal type 1a
	Sealing No. 6 Seal type 2
	Sealing No. 7 Seal type 2
	Sealing No. 8 Seal type 3
	Sealing No. 9 Seal type 3
	Sealing No. 10 Seal type 4
	Sealing No. 11 Seal type 5