Buddhist Art & Its Symbolism

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The great spiritual teacher, Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, became fully awakened some 2500 years ago while meditating under a bodhi tree in North India. The Buddha's timeless teaching is profound and in Southeast Asia remains a vital part of the fabric of society. Monks in saffron robes making alms round at first light, the scent of incense drifting on zephyrs from the local temple, lay people making offerings at modest shrines and the chanting of Pali sutras by monks in the evenings are all part of the daily sights, sounds and smells of Southeast Asia. In the West, the teaching of the Buddha has also had great resonance where it continues to open hearts and minds  to greater possibilities. Like all great religions, Buddhism and its adherents  have inspired and created a material world to express and echo its  beliefs. To seek to explore through works of art, the vast realms of Buddhism, has been for artists a challenge of immense proportions.

The Awakening of the Buddha

Born in Lumbini, in present day Nepal, Siddhatha's father was King Suddhodana, chief of the Shakya, an ancient clan in the state of Kosala, in north India. On the night Siddhartha was conceived, Queen Maya dreamed that a white elephant with six white tusks entered her right side. Ten lunar months later, Siddhartha was born. Queen Maya dies just a few days after giving birth. During the birth celebrations, the hermit seer, Asita journeyed from his mountain retreat and announced that this baby would either become a great king or a great holy man. A short time after, King Suddhodana invited eight Brahman  scholars to read the future. All gave a dual prediction that the baby would either become a great king or a great holy man. Wishing for his son to be a great king, Suddhodana shielded his son from religious teachings or knowledge of human suffering. When Siddhartha was 16, his father arranged for his marriage to Yasodhara, a cousin of the same age. In time she gave birth to a son, Rahula. Siddhartha spent 29 years as a prince in Kapilavastu. Although King Suddhodana made certain that his son's life was materially abundant, Siddhartha was left dissatisfied and felt that the ultimate goal of life lay elsewhere.

At the age of 29, Siddhartha left the confines of the palace in order to meet with his subjects. Despite his father's effort to remove the sick, aged and suffering from view, Siddhartha's eyes fell on an old man. His charioteer informed him that all people grow old, experience sickness and eventually die. This provoked further visits to town where the sight of a corpse, a diseased man and an ascetic caused him to fall into a deep depression. But it also sparked a determination to  to overcome old age, illness and death. In the darkness of night, Siddhartha left the palace on his horse, Kanthanka, accompanied by his attendant , Chandaka to live the life of an ascetic. He cut off his long hair with his sword and the hair that remained later sprang back in the characteristic tight curls which distinguish Buddha images. Siddhartha's elongated earlobes depicted in Buddhist art signify renunciation through the absence of heavy princely earrings which he discarded at this juncture of his life. This episode in th Buddha's life is a popular subject for religious art in Southeast Asia. The interior walls of the beautiful 16th century temple, Wat Xieng Thong, in Luang Prabang, Laos, depict this scene known as the 'Great Departure'.

Siddhartha practiced under two hermit teachers, Alara Kalama and then Udaka Ramaputta. He mastered the practices quickly, impressing his teachers so much that they asked him to succeed them, but although reaching high levels of meditative consciousness, Siddhartha remained dissatisfied with the path and continued on his journey. He and a group of five companions led by Kondanna practiced severe austerities, seeking enlightenment through the deprivation of worldly pleasures, including food and sleep. Graphic portrayals of the emaciated Siddhartha were popular with artists of the kingdom of ancient Gandhara in north-west India.

One day Siddhartha collapsed after taking a bath in the river. A young girl named Sujata saw the ascetic lying unconscious near the bank and held a bowl of rice milk to his lips. Siddhartha responded immediately and drank the entire bowl. After six years of extreme renunciation he concluded that this was not the way for him and vowed to practice a middle way, following neither a path of self mortification or self aggrandizement.

Siddhartha grew stronger with every day, accepting food offerings and making great progress on the path. His five friends left him, disgusted by what they perceived as weakness, but he was unperturbed. Sitting under a Bodhi tree in Bodhgaya, he vowed not to rise until he had won liberation from the forces that bring suffering to humankind. He entered ever deeper and more profound states of consciousness, contemplating the nature of emptiness, impermanence and the interdependence of all things. His mind at times was assailed by the forces of fear, temptation, attachment, greed, hatred and delusion, but in his heightened state of awareness, he saw clearly that their root was ignorance. Gautama saw that understanding and love are one and that without understanding there can be no love. Understanding gives rise to compassion, which in turn gives rise to correct action. In order to love it is first necessary to understand; in oder to understand it is necessary to live mindfully, making direct contact with the present moment and truly seeing what is taking place within and outside oneself. At this point Gautama felt oneness with all living things. He felt as though a prison that had held him for a thousand lifetimes had vanished, an illusion no more than the sum of innumerable thoughts based in ignorance. The popular bhumisparsha mudra depicts the Buddha calling the earth goddess, Sthavara to witness his enlightenment by touching the ground with his right hand, while the left hand rests in the lap, palm upturned.

At the age of 35, Siddhartha Gautama attained enlightenment; he had found the 'Great Way'. He had discovered Nirvana, a place of complete freedom, peace and ease. Siddhartha from then on was known as the Buddha or 'Awakened One' and was sometimes referred to as the Shakyamuni Buddha or 'Sage of the Shakya Clan'. He vowed to find a way to share his discovery and help all others liberate themselves from suffering. Throughout his life, the Buddha taught the way of compassion, the way of ending suffering by fully understanding its causes through the practice of mindfulness and meditation. The Buddha entered  parinirvana, the final deathless state, abandoning the earthly body at the age of 80. Before his passing, the Buddha asked all the attendant Bhikshus  to clarify any doubts or questions they had. They had none. The Buddha's final words were, "All composite things pass away. Strive for your own salvation with diligence". According to Buddhist doctrine, Siddhartha was the fourth Buddha to appear in the world and the next, Maitreya, will come only when the teaching of the last Buddha has been lost.

Buddhist Art and its Symbolism