A golden statuette of the Hindu-Buddhist goddess
"Kinari" found in an archeological dig in Esperanza, Agusan del Sur.
The Philippines's archaeological finds include many ancient
gold artifacts. Most of them have been dated to belong to the 9th century.
The artifacts reflect the iconography of the Srivijaya
empire’s Vajrayana Buddhism and its influences on the Philippines’s early
states. The artifacts’s distinct features point to their production in the
islands. It is probable that they were made locally because archaeologist Peter
Bellwood discovered the existence of an ancient goldsmith’s shop that made the
20-centuries-old lingling-o, or omega-shaped gold ornaments in Batanes.
The Golden Tara was discovered in 1918 in Esperanza, Agusan
by Bilay Campos a Manobo tribeswoman. The Golden Tara was eventually brought to
the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois in 1922. Henry Otley
Beyer, the Philippines’s pioneer anthropologist-archaeologist, and some experts
have agreed on its identity and have dated it to belong within 900-950 CE. They
cannot place, however, its provenance because it has distinct features.
The golden-vessel kinnari was found in 1981 in Surigao. The
kinnari exists in both Buddhist and Hindu mythology. In Buddhism, the kinnari,
a half-human and half-bird creature, represents enlightened action. The
Buddhist Lotus Sutra mentions the kinnari as the celestial musician in the
Himavanta realm. The kinnari takes the form of a centaur, however, in India's
epic poem, the Mahabharata, and in the Veda's Purana part.
The other finds are the garuda, the mythical bird that is
common to Buddhism and Hinduism, and several Padmapani images. Padmapani is
also known as Avalokitesvara, the wisdom being or Bodhisattva of Compassion.
