ABOUT BUDDHISM
by Joan K. Yanni
A walk through the Asian Gallery always prompts questions about Buddhism. Some information on the religion as well as on Buddhist art in the Gallery collection is always helpful.
The founder of Buddhism was Siddhartha Gautama, who was born in northeastern India, just inside present-day Nepal, around 563 BC. Because Siddhartha was the son of the head of the Sakya warrior caste, he is sometimes known as Sakyamuni, "Sage of the Sakyas." He was brought up a Hindu, and in his caste he was surrounded by all the richness and pleasures of life and shielded from its misery.
At 16 he married and began to participate in the life of the court. But this life did not satisfy him, and when he was 29 he ventured out of his palace, hoping to find enlightenment. It is said that he encountered an aged man, a sick man, and a corpse and realized that suffering is the common lot of mankind. He decided to forsake his family, wealth and power and seek the truth.
He sought answers under two spiritual masters and performed extreme self-mortification, to no avail. Finally, at the age of 35, as he sat meditating under a Bo tree, he experienced the Great Enlightenment, the highest spiritual state, and became the Buddha, or Enlightened One. He began to teach throughout northern India as a mendicant monk until he died at the age of 80. After his death, stupas, or reliquary shrines, were built in his honor. In subsequent centuries Buddhism, which sees all people as spiritually equal, spread across most of India, then to the rest of Asia including China and Japan.
The Buddha's teaching is called Dharma and is often symbolized as an eight-spiked wheel. His followers are taught Four Noble Truths: suffering is universal; the cause of suffering is craving, or selfish desire; the cure for suffering is elimination of craving; and the way to eliminate craving is to follow the "middle way." This path includes reaching out to others with sympathy and compassion, restraining greed by avoiding lying, stealing or committing violent acts, and meditating. Meditation brings peace, serenity, and knowledge of self. Achievement of this state of bliss is nirvana.
Representations of the Buddha show elongated ears, a remnant of the heavy earrings Siddhartha once wore; short curls, a result of his cutting off his long hair when he rejected his youthful life; a fleshy protuberance on the crown of his head (the ushnisha or usnisa) which represents wisdom; and the urna, a mark in the center of his forehead, sometimes a jewel, which represents omniscience, the all-seeing nature of enlightenment.
Buddha is often seen sitting cross-legged, with his left hand resting palm up in his lap, while his right hand extends down over his leg to touch the ground. This represents the moment when Buddha called upon the earth to witness his Enlightenment. All hand positions, called mudra (mood-rah), are symbolic. The right hand raised, palm out, fingers pointing up, symbolizes "Fear not." An extended left hand, palm out, fingers down, represents the granting of requests. Both hands pointing up, joined palm to palm, show reverence and submission. Deep trance meditation occurs when the hands are laid in the lap, palms upward, resting on one another; sometimes there is a bowl resting on the hands. In the teaching mudra, the hands are held in front of the chest, the index finger and thumb of the right hand touching and the left hand held below, its fingers touching the palm of the right hand. Standing figures of the Buddha usually show him with a raised right hand and a lowered left hand, both palms turned towards the spectator, respectively signifying the bestowal of fearlessness and generosity.
Bodhisattvas (bo-dee-saht-vahz) are Buddha candidates, beings who have achieved enlightenment but postponed their own nirvana in order to help others on the path to perfection. As the personification of compassion or mercy, Avalokiteshvara (Ah-vell-o-kah-tesh-vah-ra) is the most popular bodhisattva. Originally male, this bodhisattva was slowly transformed into a woman in East Asia. In China, she is known as Kwan-yin or Guan-yin; in Japan she is Kannon. Sometimes Avalokiteshvara is shown as multi-armed.
An arhat is in a special category of Buddhist iconography. Arhats are usually found as attendants to Buddha images in sculptures and painting, as in MAG's painting of the Arhat Handaka.
On view in MAG's Asian Room are three sculptures of Guanyin: the seated, polychromed wood Guan-yin on Mt. Potala, and a stone figure, both from China; and a slim, elegant Kannon from Japan. Heads of the Buddha on view are from Thailand, Cambodia and Afghanistan. There is also a sculpture of Tara in the Asian Room. MAG's figure is of Hindu origin; but Tara, said to have been born of tears shed by Avalokiteshvara, is a bodhisattva of great importance to Buddhists in Tibet and Mongolia. Our sculpture shows Tara seated on a lion throne with her right hand extended in the mudra of giving and her left holding a lotus, which signifies unity and compassion.
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