The Monk Ananda

Ananda was a cousin to the Buddha and one of his major disciples. Usually credited with being the most attentive among the Buddha’s ten principal followers, Ananda devoted himself to the Buddha as a personal attendant and, after the Buddha’s death recited all of his teachings word-for-word so they could be recorded in writing. In this Chinese imagining of Ananda, he appears as a monk, identifiable by his shaved head and monastic robes. That the figure leans slightly left is an indication that it was originally the right figure in a triad made up of the Buddha and two disciples, Ananda and Kashyapa.