Buddha Statues and the Religious Significance of the Buddhist Image

What is the Buddhist statue? Is it supposed to be a real image of the man, an inspired representation of an ideal, or an artist’s act of religious devotion? And what is its use? Is it representational, magical or simply decorative?

Part of the appeal of Buddhist art lies certainly in aesthetics. The tranquility of the Buddha's image, or the mystery of his smile, holds a universal appeal. But a deeper appreciation of Buddhist art cannot be gained without an understanding of religious role of the image itself. It is quite different from, for instance, the role that a representation of Christ on the Cross plays in Catholic worship. That, after all, is just a representation; not the real thing.

But in Buddhism the image of the Buddha is regarded as indeed the real thing. It is the living reality of the Buddha in the present moment without which it is impossible for the devotee, however earnest his faith, to conceive of, much less achieve, Salvation. Therefore understanding the difference between the Buddhist image and representative art -- that is between an image of Buddha and the living reality of the Buddhist image -- takes us to the heart of Buddhism itself, and to the very reason that Buddhism, more than any other religion, has itself become identified with its art.

It was not always this way. Originally, and for the first few centuries of its existence, Buddhism was an aniconic religion, devoid of images of the Buddha, and relying largely on symbols -- such as a pair of sandals, a parasol and a tasseled cushion upon a plinth -- to portray in art his presence, or rather perhaps his absence. For those who believe all art is propaganda driven by political needs, the history of Buddhist art is a disappointment. The 3rd century B.C. Mauriyan emperor Askoka, the first and most renown of Buddhist sovereigns, managed to propagate Buddhism throughout South Asia without the aid of an image. Instead, he relied on inscriptions, pillars and the construction of stupas, or funerary mounds associated with Buddhist relic worship, to propagate the new religion.

The Greek Origin of the Buddhist Image?

For much of the last century it was believed that it was the Greeks who, in the late centuries BC, carved the first image of the Buddha; and that it was Alexander the Great -- the most prodigious propagandist in antiquity -- who, by his conquest of Afghanistan, bequeathed the Greek heritage of art as propaganda to India and to Buddhism. The Gandharan Buddhas, with their strange blend of Greek forms and Buddhist philosophy, was long viewed as conclusive evidence for the truth of this theory.

But a Greek origin for the Buddhist image is no longer persuasive. Indian prototypes, particularly those originating near Sarnath in the lower Gangetic plain, that owe nothing to Gandharan models, are now recognized as the origin of the Buddhist image. Moreover, the whole Greek concept of art as propaganda -- based as it is on the notion of art as an imitation of nature -- is now understood as a red herring. Buddhists do not regard their art as an imitation, nor as an image; and the assumption to the contrary has long caused the Western world to look at Buddhist art through Greek eyes.

And just as the Buddhist icon had indigenous prototypes, so the ideological need to create an image of the Buddha sprang from particular intellectual and religious problems of the sort that never troubled Alexander, or any other Greek.

The problem may be simply stated. In order to apply karmic laws to explain the ineluctability of Buddha s Enlightenment, a dogma arose gradually over the course of the centuries following the Buddha s nirvana according to which every Buddha-to-be (bodhisattva) in the cosmic past gained his conception of Enlightenment from a living Buddha that he had met personally. Otherwise, it was impossible to explain how the notion of Enlightenment could ever arise.

The Dilemma: No Buddha, No Enlightenment

Enlightenment is clearly a human accomplishment, as the Buddha himself was human. But if, on the other hand, the desire for Enlightenment could occur to any mortal, then there would presumably be no need of a Buddha. To resolve this difficulty two doctrines arose: a) that the Buddha of the future (a bodhisattva) must have met personally with the Buddha in the present and, by that meeting, been inspired to form the resolve ending ultimately in Enlightenment; and b) there was virtually an infinite regression of Buddhas reaching back over innumerable eons in the past.

This doctrine worked well in explaining the (mythic) past, and, as a consequence, it provided a theological coat rack upon which to hang the mass of pre-Buddhist folktales collected into the Jataka. These were birth stories of the previous lives of the Buddha, which also served as homespun morality tales to provide folksy instruction in Buddhist precepts and values.

But one difficulty suddenly arose. The doctrine of the Living Presence guaranteed continuity of Salvation for, strictly speaking, only one generation after the present ( our ) Buddha's nirvana; thereafter darkness looms. This is because, according to the doctrine of the Living Presence, after our Buddha s nirvana there could be no Living Presence to inspire the future Buddha. As a result, the same logic designed to provide certainty to the past, did so at the unexpected price of also condemning the future to ignorance, suffering and hopelessness. If there can be no bodhisattva without a Living Presence then, it followed, there could be no Living Presence after nirvana. By the time the doctrine of the Living Presence had been formulated, several centuries had already passed since the Buddha's nirvana. Now, theologians turned to art and relics in hopes of redeeming their blunder.

The key to the solution was found in the Miracle at Shravasti, hitherto an obscure tale which was suddenly rushed up to the center stage of theology, not just among Theravadans, but among most of the competing sects as well. The fact that the Miracle of Shravasti occupies an equally prominent position in the canon of Mahayana Buddhism demonstrates both how urgent was the need to justify iconic art as the Living Presence , as well as how deeply satisfying to that dilemma was provided by the theology of the Miracle.

The Miracle at Shravasti: Being in Two Places at the Same Time

The Miracle of Shravasti, also known as the Miracle of the Double Appearances, may be briefly told:

Shortly before the beginning of the rainy season, the Buddha repaired to Shravasti, the capital of Kosala and one of the great cosmopolitan centers of Northern India. On the outskirts of the city a great multitude assembles drawn by what promises to be a highly entertaining magic show with the Buddha billed as competing against six heretical ascetics in a contest of supernatural powers. King Bimbisara was present to arbitrate the competition.

The Buddha lays on a stupendous display of magical powers in midair, humiliating the paltry heretics to the amazement and delight of the crowd. And, aloft upon a brilliant jeweled walkway suspended overhead like a rainbow, the Buddha walks back and forth, exhorting the audience to virtue, transforming the magic show into a dharmic homily.

Start now! Leave your home! Apply yourself to the Buddha's Teachings! Overthrow the army of Death the way an elephant smashes a reed hut! For whoever goes forth intent on the Doctrine and the Discipline will put an end to suffering and abandon this cycle of rebirth.

Awestruck, the hushed crowd fails to respond when the Buddha calls for questions. Realizing that he alone is fit to pose questions concerning this wonderful doctrine, the Buddha produces a single magical replica of himself, and then proceeded to walk up and down the jeweled bridge, holding a conversation with himself through which dialogue he was able to illuminated the mysteries of the wonderful dharma and convert the multitudes.

This is the Miracle of Shravasti -- the full reproduction of himself -- and not the vulgar sideshow to warm up the crowd with commonplace magic. Both the Pali and Sanskrit texts are in agreement that the Buddha did not produce just an illusion, or a copy, or an image of himself; but rather a double, such that the Buddha was capable being in two places at the same time, and of carrying on a conversation with himself. Producing an image is magic, but self-duplication is a miracle.

The story, however, continues. And the full implication of the Miracle at Travesty for the history of Buddhist art only becomes apparent in the next tale, known to, reenacted and revered by every villager throughout Buddhist South-east Asia today. This is the beloved story of the Buddha's visit to his mother, Queen Maya, in Trayastrimsha Heaven.

Upon completing his work in Shravasti, the Buddha declared that, in accord with the custom of all Buddhas in the past, he would pass the rainy season retreat by taking up residence in the Trayastrimsha Heaven. This was the World of the Thirty-three Gods, the Aryan heaven to which his mother, Maya, had ascended upon her death, shortly after giving birth to the Buddha. This first reunion of mother and son since her death was a most auspicious event. And the Buddha decided that his revelations thus far were not sufficient to repay his mother's loving kindness. For her benefit, therefore, he decided to disclose, for the first time ever, all the categories and cross-categories of the elements of reality, known thereafter as the Abhidharma pitaka. However, so abstruse is this particular discourse on Buddhist epistemology, that it took the Buddha himself no less than three full months to edify his mother by delivering his oration on the full seven books of doctrine. His sermon went on without stop.

While his sermon continued, however, other duties were pressing. The daily round of alms is an important obligation no monk may disregard. Moreover, the Buddha was anxious that his absence from earth may cause apprehension among his followers. Finally, the Buddha recognized that knowledge of the true categories of reality would benefit mortals as well as the divinities auditing his lectures along with his mother in Trayastrimsha Heaven. And for these reasons the Buddha again had recourse to the Miracle of Shravasti to create his own double allowing him to be in Heaven and on earth at the same time, lecturing both divinities and mortals simultaneously, and going out daily on his own alms round.

King Prasenajit Buddha Statute: The Living Presence

The agent of the miracle was King Prasenajit who, impatient at not seeing the Buddha while he was absent with his mother in Heaven, produced an image of Buddha made of sandalwood and placed it in customary position of the Buddha when residing in Shravasti. King Prasenajit may have regarded his act of devotion as art, not to mention magic. However, no sooner was it in situ, than the Buddha image itself broke into speech and proceeded to lecture the multitudes on the philosophical subtleties of the Abhidharma. And when, after the rainy season, the Buddha returned from Heaven to Shravasti, the image stood up and greeted him. The Buddha thanked the image who was actually himself for taking his place in Shravasti and reminded him that its services would be need again after he himself passes into final nirvana.

And thus was iconic Buddhist art born. By elevating the icon of the Buddha through the miracle of self-duplication, the theologians extracted themselves from the predicament they had thrust upon themselves inadvertently by abolishing the Living Presence. As a result of the Miracle, wherever there is a statue of the Buddha, there also exists the Living Presence and the true charisma that is both necessary and sufficient to inspire the devotee with hope for Enlightenment and Salvation.

Of course, some will only be amused by such theological gymnastics. But the fact remains that such beliefs, however droll, are the ground from which has sprung one of the world's most prodigious and inventive art traditions ever. For the first few centuries of its history, Buddhism was an ethical doctrine, born of philosophical skepticism and organized around an aniconic worship of relics. The 2nd century BC stupa at Sanchi attests to this aniconic earlier phase.

But as a philosophy devoid of art, despite benefitting from the imperial patronage Asoka, Buddha was in danger of falling victim to its own rigorous logic and going the way of the ancient Stoics of Rome, about whom nothing is heard today. The Stoics were, after all, another movement of skeptical philosophers, which enjoyed imperial patronage (Marcus Aurelius), and advocated ethics very similar to those of the early Buddhists. Indeed, the first Stoics in Athens may have been inspired by the Buddhists of India. And, again like the early Buddhists, the Stoics preferred logic to art. Their movement too was aniconic; and, in due course, it vanished and was forgotten.

Saved By Art

It is no exaggeration to say, therefore, that, as a religion at least, Buddhism was saved from a similar fate almost wholly by art. Once the icon occupied the center stage of Buddhism, it blossomed into one of the greatest artistic flowerings in the history of civilization; and with it, possibly indeed even because of it, the Buddhist religion spread throughout Asia where it remains alive today.

It is worth carrying this comparison with classical antiquity a step further. For, the Greek revolution of naturalism in 5th century BC Athens produced the only other movement in art, Western Classicism, that compares with Buddhist art for its longevity, vitality and mission civilatrice. The history of Western art is largely a story of the revival of Athenian naturalism in successive renaissances over the millennia until, that is, the advent of modernism at the turn of the last century, issued rationalism its quietus.

And yet the philosophies of Buddhist and Greek art could not be more different. The Greek revolution was grounded in the Aristotelian concept of mimesis, or art an imitation of nature; while, as we have seen from the Miracle of Shravasti , the Buddhist icon is neither an imitation, nor even a representation, of any thing. Rather it is the double presence of the Buddha himself. This distinction is often lost on many who, commenting on Buddhist art, work implicitly from Western notions of art as imitation and go out their way to explain why the image of the Buddha does not look natural -- the arms and legs are too long, the fingers bend backwards, the body boneless, and the shape of the cranium abnormal, etc. Actually, the usual explanation runs, the Buddha was abnormal because, as a mahapurusa (superman), he was born with the thirty-two signs, such as bust like a lion, forty teeth, feet with level tread, soles marked with thousand-spoked wheel-signs, etc.

It is not that such explanations are wrong per se. Rather, by assuming that an image's real significance must lie in the accuracy of its representation, such comments are merely pedestrian. They miss the deeper point of the art itself. Yes, some of the mahapurusa's thirty-two marks have been incorporated into the prototype Buddha image. This is obvious. But the art of the double presence does not strive to imitate appearances. It aspires to create the Living Presence of the Buddha, which is a matter, not of appearances, but of the distinctively Buddhist states of mind -- those transcendent conditions of tranquility, serenity, flame-like intensity and transcendent composure that remain inutterable, except for their expression in the Buddha's image. That it manages to make living and present otherwise ineffable states of the sublime, and not appearances, is the highest achievement of Buddhist art, and of any art.

Finally, it may be said that the doctrine of the double presence broadens the context of any particular Buddhist image well beyond the literal scene evoked by its iconography. For instance, the image displaying the Calling the Earth to Witness mudra explicitly invokes the earth goddess Sthavara(Thorani in Thai) by pointing the Buddha's right hand downwards. However, simply by virtue of being ritually constituted, every image also evokes the dual presence of the Buddha both with his mother Queen Maya in Trayastrimsha Heaven and simultaneously as Living Presence on earth before the devotee. Seen in light of these doctrines, the Buddha does not just portray a narrative in Calling the Earth to Witness , but rather acts as a transmission line conveying the powerful spiritual currents charged by the Celestial Mother above and running into the ground of the Earth Goddess below, rather like a bolt of lightening. Properly understood, therefore, no Buddhist icon is art in the Western sense of mimesis, but rather a conductor of the spiritual energies and electrifying currents of Buddha's power and charisma.