A Khmer bronze Buddha Muchalinda, Cambodia, 12-13th century, A Bayon style Khmer Buddha seated in samādhi (concentration) on the coils of the snake Muchalinda, with a seven-headed hood sheltering Buddha, his face with a serene expression with downcast eyes and hands held in his lap in Dhyānamudrā. A narrative image referring to the story of the meditating Buddha who was protected by a seven-headed snake during heavy rains. According to the Vinaya-piṭaka text the snake Muchalinda sheltered the Buddha by winding his coils seven times round the Buddha's body and holding his hood over the Buddha's head [1] which follows a different description than this Khmer Buddha Muchalinda, sometimes also called Nāga-Buddha. The event of Muchalinda protecting Buddha happened in the sixth week after the enlightenment of the Buddha [2] in the 6th Cen. B.C. when the Buddha was seated under a Nighrodha tree in the city of Muchalida. The Nighrodha tree is also called the Muchalinda tree (possibly denoting the place) under which or near the roots of which (Muchalindamūle) the Buddha sat to meditate. The earliest narrative image referring to Buddha Muchalinda is from Pauni, Maharashtra India discovered in 1967. [3] This image is dated to the 2nd Cen B.C., when there were references in (Hīnayāna) aniconic art to Buddha, but Buddha himself was not depicted. The sculpture from Pauni therefore shows only Buddha's throne being protected by Muchalinda. From the Gāndhāra period onwards, Buddha Muchalinda is depicted as described above and in the Vinaya-piṭaka, where Buddha's body is wrapped by the snake Muchalinda. Only a few, probably four [4] depictions exist of the “original” form of Buddha Muchalinda, while the rest, including this Khmer Buddha Muchalinda, are the region-influenced or doctrine-influenced depictions. With the rise of Mahāyāna Buddhism, new forms and iconography of Buddha Muchalinda appear in various schools of art like Mathurā, Amarāvatī, Gupta and Vākāṭaka including the base form of this Buddha Muchalinda from Khmer Cambodia where Buddha is sitting on the nāga. The earliest known depiction of this form appears in the Indian village Goli, Andhra Pradesh, dated to 3rd-4th century A.D., now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The shape of this Goli Buddha corresponds to the Khmer Buddha, except for the fact that the Indian Buddha sits on four rings of snake instead of three. Most likely by the sixth century, images of the Nāga enthroned Buddha had been introduced to mainland Southeast Asia simultaneously from Sri Lanka [5]. In Khmer mythology, it is not unlikely that the description and therefore depiction of Buddha sitting on a nāga was highly subject to new interpretations by the sculptor and patron. The Muchalinda episode is never quoted in Khmer inscriptions, but the relation between the Khmer people and nāgas go long back. In one of the versions, a local Nāgini princess, Somā, who was conquered by an Indian Brahmin, Kauṇḍinya (or Preah Thaong) r