Water Ewer for Rituals (Kundika)

1100s

Water Ewer for Rituals (Kundika), 1100s. Korea, Goryeo period (918-1392). Bronze; overall: 39.5 cm (15 9/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Seventy-fifth anniversary gift of David S. Utterberg 1991.58 Known as kundika in Sanskrit, this distinctively shaped vessel served to purify a sacred space and to invoke a deity. In Korean Buddhist art, it appears primarily as an attribute of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara (Gwaneum in Korean). By the 1100s, however, the kundika was used as aristocrats’ fancy water container for everyday use. This distinctively shaped vessel is called a kundika in Sanskrit, simply referring to a water bottle.