The Sarnath Buddha

Ten minutes from the deer park, the Sarnath Museum — India's oldest site museum — holds a single sculpture that is, to many eyes, the summit of Buddhist art: the Preaching Buddha of Sarnath.

The turning of the wheel, in stone

Carved from fine Chunar sandstone in the 5th century, at the height of the Gupta period, the Buddha sits with his hands raised before his chest in the dharmachakra mudra — the gesture of setting the wheel of dharma in motion, exactly the act that took place at Sarnath. His robe is rendered without a single fold, so that the figure seems to shed the physical entirely; the halo behind him is worked with exquisite foliage; below, small figures and the wheel itself recall the first sermon. The serenity of the downcast eyes has never been surpassed.

Seeing it well

The museum also holds the original Lion Capital of Ashoka — the four addorsed lions that India took as its state emblem, and the wheel that sits at the centre of the national flag. We spend an unhurried hour here, because the objects reward stillness; a coach tour gives them ten minutes, and ten minutes is not enough to meet the Sarnath Buddha's gaze.