[Buddha-l] Gandharan Buddhist Art at NY Asia Society

[L.S. Cousins]

Dan Lusthaus writes:

> This suggests to me that the list is not to be taken as an inventory 
> of how Buddha's appearance was remembered by his immediate followers, 
> or even the earlier generations of followers, but were cobbled from a 
> a variety of sources and concerns.

I would see the list as a unity and not at all as cobbled together. I 
see no reason why it should not have been produced by one individual or 
group at a relatively early date.

> I'm not sure which meditative prism you are using to reconstruct the 
> misshapen into the handsomest "Bull among men," but your suggestion 
> simply sounds like one of many strategies for suspending attention to 
> literal details. 
It's more a question of using imagination when dealing with 
visualization practices. I find the whole thing rather beautiful and 
inspiring.

> As to your other points:
>> The list is fairly similar
>> in Theravādin and Sarvāstivādin sources; this suggests rather an earlier
>> date.
> Not necessarily. First, according to many of the early doxographic surveys
> (and by "early", I mean 1st c BCE - 3rd/4th c CE) the Sarvastivada is
> considered an offshoot of Theravada, so one shouldn't overplay similarities,
> projecting them as blanket assumptions about other Buddhist contemporaries.
> Unfortunately, much of the literature of those other schools has not
> survived, so the actual degree of variance on a huge range of issues can
> only be guessed at.
This is rather poor, Dan. There is only one early doxographic survey, 
which may not be earlier than the second century A.D. i.e. Vasumitra. 
But more importantly Theravāda is being used in a different sense here 
i..e to refer to one of the two root traditions in the Sangha. That's 
quite different to Theravāda, or Theriya, if you prefer, as the name of 
the school centred anciently in Ceylon. By the second century A.D. the 
Sarvāstivāda and the Theriya schools had been separated for many 
centuries. And many of their teachings had long taken a fixed form.

> Second, the redaction of Theravada and Sarvastivada literature remained an
> open process well into the 5th c CE or later, so assuming very early dates
> simply on the basis of a convergence may be problematic.
This seems nonsense to me. Of course, in both schools new works continue 
to be produced — in Theravāda down to modern times, but that has no 
bearing on the date of the canonical material. The commentaries of 
Buddhaghosa in the fourth or fifth century A.D. comment on the marks as 
an established list. Those commentaries are simply a revised version of 
much earlier commentaries — they contain no historical information later 
than the first century A.D. We are dealing here with textual traditions 
that are older than any artistic representations from the North-West.

> And that the mahapurusa iconography
> does eventually make its appearance late in their art (late 4th, 5th c or
> so) suggests that is when the lists had become ensconsed.
>
> That doesn't mean that a variety of lists of descriptions on the physical
> attributes of the buddha were not in circulation early on. But it suggests
> that the major and minor mark lists were codified late.
All it tells us is that the list of marks was not being used for 
artistic purposes and that artists may not have known about it.

> There is nothing in the list of marks as to whether the Buddha-to-be had
> a moustache and no mention of 'snails'.
> Exactly. Yet for many centuries artists in Gandhara, C. Asia and China
> almost invariably included moustaches, indicating they were working from a
> different list of iconic "must shows".
It shows only that in the North-West the idea of royalty without a 
moustache was inconceivable at that date. It tells us nothing about the 
marks.

> How the hair became "snail-like" thingies is a curious phenomenon, which
> also seems to have happened relatively late (ca. 4th c or so). In the
> earlier centuries Buddha had relatively straight (or slightly wavy) hair,
> pulled back and piled on top as a hair bun. After some centuries, the hair
> got curlier, so that initially what become the "snail-like" thingies began
> as curly ringlets. The curls got more and more stylized until reaching the
> form that's been the basic "standard" for the last 1500 years or so.
We have no earlier representations of the Buddha in the heartland or the 
Deccan or further south. He appears always to be represented by symbols. 
That may be precisely because something like the marks was current and 
not thought capable of representation.

> Incidentally, any good explanations for why the Buddha and some of his top
> honchos don't shave their heads like everyone else? (Mahayana Bodhisattvas
> are typically depicted with full heads of hair)
I suspect that they do, but not as often as nowadays in some schools. 
For peripatetics shaving was not all that convenient. So it was done at 
ordination and then only from time to time when the hair got too long. 
This seems to be what the Vinaya envisages.

I am not clear whether the earlier representations with a hair bun in 
the North-West actually represent the Buddha Gotama after enlightenment. 
Some may be the Bodhisattva before enlightenment or Mahāyāna Buddhas.

Lance