Seated Buddha with serpant hood (probably Mucalinda), cast bronze sculpture, late 12th or 13th century, Cambodia

The meditating Buddha raised up on the coils of the naga-serpent king Mucalinda. According to Buddhist legend, soon after the Buddha's Enlightenment at Bodhgaya a great storm was sent against him and the nagaraja lifted the Buddha from the flood waters and sheltered him from the rain with his hood. This subject is known in Khmer art from as early as the 7th century.

Given by David Knight

This object was formerly in the collection of Gilbert Beatty (1887–1967), born Richard John Beatty (also spelled Beattie). Between 1911 and 1951, Beatty worked in various administrative positions at rubber plantations and in government in Malacca, Malaysia. He assembled a large collection of South-East Asian art before the Second World War. In the late 1950s, he became friendly with his neighbours, the Knight family. David Knight (d. 1993), who was then a child, took a particular interest in Beatty’s collection, which he often saw during visits to Beatty’s home-cum-guest house, ‘Palm Beach.’

In 1960, Gilbert Beatty gave much of his collection to David Knight. The objects were shipped to the UK with the rest of the Knight family’s possessions later that year aboard HMS Oxford Castle. Beatty reportedly donated the remainder of his collection to a local museum. Between 1991 and his death in 1993, David Knight donated or sold much of the Beatty Collection to the Victoria & Albert Museum.

See Victoria & Albert Museum registered file numbers 1991/2044, 1993/599, 1993/600, 1993/823

Cambodia

IS.57-1993